Shepherd of Humanity
by Empirialtank
Summary: The Age of Strife has ended and the lost colonies of man reach for the stars once more, most ignorant of their history or each other's existence. In one corner of the Galaxy mankind meets the peaceful Citadel Council and joins a galactic community. In another the Master of Mankind has lost his sons to the warp. One of those sons has been found in Alliance space. On Elysium. preME1
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own mass effect or Warhammer 40k please support the official products and their creators.

Authors Note: I deleted a few guest reviews because they seemed to just be ranting about 40k fluff. I would ask reviewers if they could keep reviews relevant to the story itself. I welcome constructive criticism, and if you think I am inaccurately portraying the lore of Mass Effect or 40k I would appreciate correction and to hear your thoughts on the matter. Please bear in mind though that this story takes place in the 30th millennia, just after the great crusade has begun so the Imperium doesn't really exist yet outside of Terra itself. Also this story will mostly be focusing on the Mass Effect side of things for now, don't expect big E to show up any time soon.

Prologue: Child of the Stars

Eight years ago

"Spectre Valern?" A voice asked from the behind the young Salarian, interrupting his attempts to enjoy some truly marvelous soup. "Do you mind if I join you for a few minutes?"

Valern glanced backwards at the speaker. A human unsurprisingly, considering this was Elysium after all. The man himself was about as inconspicuous as possible. He had short brown hair, under a ball cap, turned down just enough to put the top of his face in shadow. His clothing was in the current jumpsuit style, that humans had taken a liking to, but it was shaded just right color to blend in rather well with the scenery. He was a very forgettable man. N7 probably, certainly some one used to the usual cloak and dagger stuff.

"Don't let me stop you." Valern said indicating the seat across from him. "I don't suppose you would believe me if I said that I really am here on vacation?"

"Oh I believe you." The N7 said taking the seat, passing a small data chip across the table. "That makes this the perfect opportunity from some very informal reporting."

"Informal reporting?" The spectre asked as he briefly scanned the chip for malware before inserting it into his omnitool. It was possible the human might have something rather nasty on the chip, but this was his off duty omnitool, nothing on it the System Alliance could actually want to know.

"The System Alliance believes that the Citadel Council should be made aware so certain recent developments but would prefer if these events remained as secret as possible."

"How secret are we talking here?" Valern asked as he accessed the chip which contained a small set of libraries filled with a number of military reports, communications, pictures, and medical scans.

"If anyone asks, I was never here, this never happened and the SA formally protests the slanderous lies the Council has unfairly leveled against them."

Valern paused for a moment at that. Clearly the SA wanted Citadel support for something and dreaded the idea of anyone finding out about it. There were only a few things he could think of that could require this kind of 'informal reporting'. He did not like the thought of what those could be.

"What exactly is this about Mr. Not-Here?" Valern inquired holding the human's gaze.

"The chip has everything we know about the incident so far." The man said, gesturing to Valen's omnitool. "In short, ten days ago a cruiser of ours on patrol near the Terminus systems commanded by one Sara Shepherd encountered a rather strange object."

Valern motioned the man to continue speaking as he looked over the first few reports on the chip as well as a personnel file on the captain. The captain's record was fairly standard, a veteran of the Relay 314 incident back when she was still a lieutenant followed by a few engagements against pirates and slavers. Valern's eyes widened as he saw the spectrographic report attached to her first recorded message sent back to SA command.

"While on patrol she briefly detected a burst of very strange radiation nearby. She moved her ship over to investigate, and found a small cloud of debris in the area."

"A destroyed ship?" Valern guessed, a mass effect core going off could produce some very strange results, but he had never heard of anything like what the cruiser's sensors recorded.

"Not nearly large enough. Honestly most of what the captain eventually recovered seemed like office equipment and a few rather large destroyed computer banks. The only thing of note was a single large metal cylinder about two and a half meters tall and maybe a meter wide. She believed the cylinder might have been an escape pod. The pod was made mostly of steel, though steel that had been interwoven with carbon in an almost plastic like way. There was some electrical equipment on the outside, housed in a very unusual casing."

Valern glanced over a metallurgical report on said casing. He promptly did a double take as he saw the molecular composition of the metal. He glared at the report and muttered to himself.

"That's impossible."

"Every metallurgy expert we've shown that report to has said the same thing. But that is what the stuff is made out off. It's damn near indestructible."

"And the electronics themselves? Were you able to interface with them?"

"No, unfortunately. The system is based on binary, but it's both rather archaic and unspeakable fast. It also houses a rather nasty VI security system that takes itself very seriously. The first time we tried to link it up to one of our computers it invaded our system and overloaded the console's power supply, it destroyed the computer in an electrical surge."

"Nasty."

"Quite."

"So did you all managed to get the pod open?"

"Yes quite easily in fact. The controls on the system were labeled with small pictures and so the crew was able to open it up with no real hassle."

"What was inside?"

"A small child. Male, about maybe 12 years old or so. The Captain got him clothed and sent down to the med-bay almost immediately."

"And the Citadel Council needs to know about this child because?"

"The shipboard doctor did a quick scan of the child," The human explained with a strange air of smugness about him. "While they got him something to eat. Then he readjusted his equipment and checked for any flaws and scanned the child again. Those scans were confirmed at an Alliance military hospital when the cruiser returned to Elysium nine days ago. Those medical scans and the subsequent DNA tests run on the child are included on that data-chip. You should read them."

"So the kids not human." Valern commented as he looked over the x-rays of the child's skeleton. He also noticed several growths and organs present where they shouldn't be if he remembered his extra species biology courses.

"That's the leading theory at the moment."

"Leading? There are others?"

"The kid's DNA contains the entirety of the human genome."

"Contains?"

"Well he's got a whole extra helix and a few more chromosomes than is normal. But everything that makes a human human is in there."

"Genes not found in your species are usually a good sign that the creature is question is not from your species. If the fact that his ribs have fused together into a chest plate didn't already give that one away. Or the fact that he has a second heart. And a third lung."

"But for him to have all our DNA and then some? Even parallel evolution can't explain that, the odds are too ludicrous. Even the Asari vary from human DNA by a whole 4%. Some of our geneticists have suggest that is looks like someone took the human genome and bolted on a whole load of extra stuff to make it better."

"So either we have a first contact scenario in spitting distance of the terminus systems with a species whose biology puts the Krogan to shame, or some non governmental human organization is experimenting on children presumably to develop some kind of genetic super soldier?"

"Worst case scenario yeah."

"Well there goes my vacation. The citadel will want a spectre involved in this, probably several."

"The SA appreciates the assistance so long as we can keep this on the down low."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Where is the kid now? His existence might be a violation of several citadel laws."

"His creation might have broken several laws, and he might also be the last survivor of an unknown species spaceship. Right now he is being kept an Alliance military research station here on Elysium. The eggheads are monitoring his health, trying to make sense of his body, and trying to teach the kid English."

"He doesn't speak any human languages?"

"As far as we know he doesn't speak any languages at all. But he's learning real fast. Captain Shepherd has taken the role of his legal guardian for now."

"If he's not saying anything the trauma of what happened may have wiped or repressed his memories."

"Maybe. Hopefully in a few weeks we can just ask him what happened and move forward from there."

Valern chuckled quietly to himself before responding. "Let me tell you something Mr. Not Here, in this line of work things are never that simple."

* * *

Present day

Of course things hadn't been simple. The kid had actually learned English a few days before Valern was contacted. But he had kept quiet for another week before he felt he could trust Sara Shepherd enough to speak to her. But it didn't do any good. The kid's first memories were of waking up in Shepherd's ship. He didn't know anything about himself or others.

The humans had named him John since all unknown persons in the SA are called John Doe till proven otherwise. He took the last name Shepherd though instead of Doe after Sara since she had proven to love him like a son. A trait she shared with all the other genetically altered kids that they had found over the next eight years.

They never found out anything about Shepherd or where he had come from, but apparently there had been quite a large illegal gene therapy and custom baby black market growing under the SA's nose. Valern had rescued dozens of children from designer baby hospitals to full on super soldier training programs being run by the terrorist organization Cerberus. Most of the kids either had no living relatives or none who weren't going to jail for dangerous gene tampering, so many of the kids ended up living on an Elysium military base alongside Shepherd and his mother.

Space exploration in the region where Shepherd had been found, yielded no real results. No signs of any advanced civilizations or any of the strange radiation that had preceded his discovery. No wreckage of any other down or failed ships were found in that region either. It seemed as if the boy had just appeared out of literal nothingness.

Attempts to access the computer that controlled his pod eventually resulted in its VI committing suicide and frying its own electronic systems. Not only did this destroy any data that could've been gained from it, but it also severely damaged the internal mechanisms of the pod itself, preventing much in the way of analyzing its technology. Several theories were proposed on how the metal of the pod itself could've been constructed, but since most of them involved working with temperatures close to the core of the average star, none had been proven successful.

And that was where the story of Shepherd mostly ended. There was simply no further data to act on. His existence was impossible, and unexplainable. So it was mostly ignored and the boy was left to simply grow up. He was still monitored by SA scientists since his physiology was so strange. The man was now almost three and a half meters tall, his strength would be considered monstrous by Krogan standards. Most importantly though, he possessed an impressively analytical mind. By the second year of his education, he had been found in the alliance garage one day, disassembling a Mako tank. By the end of that day he had also put it back together and had several ideas on how to improve the design.

It was around that point that the Citadel had put its foot down in one regard. Being surrounded by soldiers and raised by a navy captain, it was natural that Shepherd would be attracted to the military way of life. But with no evidence that a species like him existed in the galaxy, and plenty of evidence that several organizations existed in the Alliance that were experimenting on the human genome, it made it clear that Shepherd must be the product of some genetic experiment. And while the Citadel wasn't about to condemn a man on the circumstances of his birth, if the Alliance knowingly used a gene enhanced man as part of its military it would do so in violation of several Citadel accords. Shepherd would never be allowed to join the SA army or navy, or even research new weapons for that matter.

In this purpose the Citadel had one unexpected ally in the form of Sara Shepherd herself. While she was proud of her service to the Alliance and her military career, she considered it an utter waste if any of the enhanced children under her care used their talents in anything less than the pursuit of the galaxy's greatest good. Despite his incredible physical power, she insisted at every turn that Shepherd must use his talents to help the most people possible, which meant either some great research project or driving the galactic economy to new heights. Yet for now, Shepherd remained content on Elysium with his rather vast adopted family.

Councilor Valern found himself reflecting on this as ambassador Udina ranted and raved against the Batarians on the Citadel floor. It had been a few years since he last saw Shepherd. He had spent nearly a quarter of his life and most of his specter career in Alliance space hunting down rouge genetic scientist and playing nice with one of the galaxy's more volatile species. Eventually his many successes had led his Dalatrass to maneuver him into politics and eventually a position on the Citadel Council. Truth be told, it wasn't the future he had ever envisioned for himself and he often missed the days when just shooting people was a legitimate solution to his problems. But the Council did provide amazing challenges of its own. Every negotiation was like a 3D puzzle where you couldn't see half the pieces. Once you figured out all the motivations that people were keeping hidden from you, it was usually fairly straightforward to find a solution that would at least satisfy everyone. Finding those motivations, secrets, and all the other little leavers that people kept hidden from you was the real challenge and so, so satisfying to pull off.

But this? There was no secrecy to this whole rotten business. No intrigue, no real class to it at all. The situation couldn't be more simplistic. The System Alliance was frustrated with the Council blocking most of their attempts at peaceful expansion into traditional and safe regions. This was necessary to both keep some method of control over the young hot headed species and to keep them out of certain regions of space until the Council was certain it could trust them with more serious matters. So the SA began settling in the Verge, a region not under as heavy Council regulations as others. The Verge was also being settled by the Batarians for much the same reasons sparking tensions between the two races. The Hegemon couldn't afford to back down in the face of Human aggression, but also couldn't provoke open warfare against a race that had gone toe to toe with the Turians. The natural solution had been to fund pirate and slaver rings to disrupt SA colonial efforts and attempt to force them back.

Now the situation had escalated too far. The major human colony of Elysium, well outside of the Verge had been attacked and tens of thousands of humans had been carried off by the pirates. This put the Council in an awkward position. If humanity attacked the Hegemony, the Council would need to defend the Batarians to prevent the System Alliance from gaining too much power. But justifying that war and drumming up the popular support for it would be nearly impossible after such a tragedy. Plus the fighting would mostly fall to the Turians to carry out. And while half the Turians would love nothing more than to put humanity in its place, the other half would want to give them guns, a friendly pat on the back and a push in the general direction of those slaving bastards who had thumbed their noses at the Hierarchy for centuries. And in all honesty, more than one Asari Matriarch and Dalatrass had not so subtlety suggested the same thing. At the very least the Council was going to have to give humanity a free hand in the Verge with Spectre support and hope that humanity would be satisfied with wiping out the pirate population and that the Hegemon would be smart enough to pull all support for the pirates and cut his losses. It would've been very nice if all of this was Councillors Valern's greatest concern.

But there was the video to consider. The STG had descended on Elysium's security systems as soon as word of the attack had come through. The mission was simple, delete all visual evidence of Batarian special forces on the planet and prevent the situation from escalating completely out of control. While rooting through their systems the STG had found something very interesting and reported a video recording of it to Valern. It was that video that had Valern deeply concerned and thinking of the past.

"Ambassador" Valern interrupted, "Your fury at the situation is understandable and the Council's sympathy goes out to all the victims of this tragedy. But this Council chamber is not the place to air these baseless accusations and conspiracy theories against a valued member of the Citadel community."

This was the wrong way to handle the situation and Valern knew it. The humans needed some catharsis after this tragedy and letting their ambassador rave in this way let them all know that their government was taking the crisis seriously, and that they didn't need to take matters into their own hands. Also if the Council could keep the Batarians in suspense over weather or not they would let humanity directly pursue their vengeance into Batarians space they could force greater concessions out of the Batarians and this matter to close more easily. Interrupting the rant now would only further frustrated humanity and emboldened the Batarians. Valern would be more inclined to follow that line of thought if his greatest concern was human Batarian peace. But it was not. It wasn't even in his top five concerns at the moment.

Udina glared at the Salarian just a hair short of complete fury. Some of it might even be genuine, the ambassador rarely appreciated being interrupted like that. Mostly though it was just another mask the man wore to advanced the needs of his people. The Batarian ambassador smiled all to smugly to himself realizing he wouldn't even need to speak out in his own defense. Definitely growing all too confident from the exchange. Sparatus seemed to raise his head at the interruption in approval. The old Turian was definitely part of the camp that wanted mankind under tighter Council control if not to just resume the First Contact War and make them a true protectorate. Tevos raised a single eyebrow at her fellow councilor. A veteran diplomat who had managed the Council for dozens of Salarian generations, she was well aware that Valern was making a misstep in interrupting the ambassador no matter what her personal feeling about humanity might have been. That she did no more to get in Valern's way was a testament to the trust she put in his capabilities despite the short time they had known each other.

"Rest assured," The Counselor continued, "Mankind will be able to count on the full support of the Special Tasks Group and the Citadel spectres in tracking down these pirates and rescuing your lost citizens."

That one made Sparatus give Valern a glare. The STG and the spectres both were already hard at work tracking the pirates and would've 'leaked' the location of any pirate bases in the Verge to the SA as quickly as possible so mankind could have its vengeance and move on. But direct cooperation between the two? That was going a step too far, it might just embolden the SA to go hunting for their lost people into Batarian space. Udina looked questioningly at the councilor doubting his intentions. Tevos nodded to herself, this was the best way to cover Valern's previous misstep and keep mankind and the Batarians guessing at which side the Council would fall on. The Batarian all but quivered with outrage. He knew that those words had ended the fight over the Verge. The pirates were now doomed and if the Batarians tried to salvage the situation they only would give the SA all the proof they needed to strike directly at them. And if things actually were that simple Valern would've eaten his own leg.

"But for now I feel you have wasted enough of our time on this matter." Valern concluded eager to move on to what was actually important. "Ambassador Jath'Amon, the Council apologizes for you having to sit through all this. I trust the Hegemony will soon publicly condemn these criminal and offer them no succor in your sovereign space."

"Of course Councilor." The Batarian ambassador responded with one of the most plastic and unconvincing smiles Valern had ever seen. "All the Hegemony's thoughts and prayers go out to our human brethren in this time crisis. I do hope that we can all move past this incident and learn to work more closely together in the future."

"Thank you ambassador." Valern nodded at him. "Ambassador Udina, now that we are done with that unpleasantness, the Council needs to speak to you on urgent matters of state. In a sealed chamber."

That one took everyone by surprise. The Batarian ambassador froze in place. Udina took a physical step back. Sparatus and Tevos exchanged looks, nodded to each other, and then to the C-Sec officers in the gantry around the chamber. The officers quickly set to work clearing the chamber of the reporters, representatives, interested citizens and all the other various folk who for whatever reason felt the Council's chambers were the ideal place to pass the time and conduct business. The Batarian ambassador held his ground for a few minutes, but he had been dismissed and soon was politely asked to move on by C-Sec.

After the chamber was empty of everyone but a few trusted C-Sec officers, the ambassador and the councilors, Valern scanned the chamber with his personal, spectre grade omnitool. He detected several bugs, and a few viruses in the security system, all of which he quickly crippled. His actions did not pass unnoticed by his fellows who now showed open curiosity at the precaution. It was very rare that the Council had a truly sealed meeting. This was certain to set the rumor mills turning and lead to a large increase in the Shadow Broker's prices. Finally the Councilor spoke to the real issue at hand.

"Ambassador where is Shepherd?" Valern demanded.

"I'm sorry wh-" The Udina started to reply, his face falling into the perfect mask of confusion.

"DO NOT play dumb with me Ambassador." Valern interrupted with all the scorn, force and presence his role of councilor allowed him to project. "There is no way you weren't updated of the situation the moment the research station on Elysium was attacked. Now explain to this Council where exactly mankind's three and a half meter tall super soldier is at this moment."

Sparatus did a full double take at Valern while Tevos's eyes widened in recognition. Both of them had been Councilors when Shepherd had first been found years ago. But nothing had ever really came from that investigation, so it was understandable that the two had forgotten that the man was still living on Elysium. That their aides had not reminded them of that fact the moment the name of planet under attack by the Batarians was known was either a serious oversight on their parts, or the Council had taken mankind's request for secrecy on that matter much more seriously than Valern had thought. The ambassador's face went completely blank for a few seconds as he evaluated his options before he spoke again.

"We don't exactly know." Udina explained, "The Batarians were very well informed about Elysium's defenses. Their special forces hit the research station directly while the pirates raided civilian sites around the planet. The military did its best to protect the children from the slavers but they were hard pressed to hold them off. Eventually Shepherd lead a group of the more biotically capable and older children in a direct assault against the Batarians. He broke their offensive and rallied the base's security before counter attacking and driving them off. Shepherd himself vanished into the surrounding woodland pursuing the retreating Batarians accompanied by Jack and Miranda. Based on the reports from civilians we've gathered, he made his way to a few nearby settlements, where he continued to fight the Batarians and rescue civilians. We have yet to find out exactly where he ended up, but we should soon enough. He left behind a rather distinct trail of bodies after all."

"You people unleashed that genetic monster into actual combat?" Sparatus demanded, "Do you have any idea how many treaties you humans just broke doing that?!"

"We unleashed nothing!" Udina insisted, "Shepherd was under direct orders from his MOTHER not to interfere. After the initial attack was stopped base security ordered Shepherd to stand down at GUNPOINT before he laughed at them stormed off into the woods. Mankind is not responsible for the Batarians stirring up that particular nest of hornets."

"You think that's any excuse? You people have probably been looking for any excuse to set that MAN loose on the Batarians, since the raid on Midior."

"Sparatus," Tevos interjected, trying to deescalate the situation. "Shepherd has a right to defend himself and his fellows. Mankind has complied with all Citadel requirements with Shepherd and the other gene enhanced children, they do not deserve to suffer these accusations."

Sparatus glared at Tevos but dropped the matter. Valern had heard that the Turian councilor had wanted to have Shepherd and the others executed to preserve citadel peace. Thankfully he had been voted down by the other two Councilors in that regard. Valern would probably have helped the kids go into hiding if he had ever been given that order. Valern had done some ethically monstrous things as a spectre, it was part of the job, but he drew the line at murdering children for no other crime than existing.

"But Shepherd continued absence concerns me." Tevos continued. "With all the military on Elysium now, how hard could it be to find one giant human?"

"The humans won't find Shepherd on Elysium" Valern explained, as he transferred a video file from his omnitool to a nearby holo display. The video was taken from a closed circuit camera at one of Elysium's space ports. It showed a number of drones and workers lifting cages, some empty, some full of people, into a docked ship. The time stamp on the video corresponded to a time when the first SA reinforcements began to arrive in system. So the pirates were understandably panicked, and rushed to load as much of their illegal cargo as they could. While the workers rushed forward to grab more crates, a short time occurred when no one was looking towards the ship. During that window two cloaked figures rushed to an empty cage being carried by a pair of drones. By themselves they might have looked like an adult and an young child, but with the drones to give proper proportions, it was clear that one of them was simply gigantic, the drones and his compatriot barely came up to his hips. The gigantic figure effortlessly pulled two the bars apart on the cage, allowing him and his partner to climb aboard. The drones paid no mind to the event, their VIs not smart enough to process this abnormality, and by the time the pirates had turned back to the ship, the cage had been loaded with the rest. Shortly thereafter, the ship closed and took off.

Udina swore to himself as the video ended, turning the attention of the Councilors back to him. He tried to stare them down, mustering all the defiance he could in the face of their judgement. He spoke at last to preempt another tirade Sparatus was working himself up to in the silence.

"We believe the second figure was Jack." Udina calmly stated, responding to perhaps the least important question raised by the video. "We found Miranda this morning helping out at a hospital. She said the other two were alive last she saw them. Acting like a pair of damn fools, certain to get themselves killed in her opinion. We were holding out hope that the two had seen sense, and actually spent the night hopping bars or something."

"And what exactly did she say they were going to do?" Tevos asked.

"They are going to rescue the captured civilians no doubt with some damn fool heroic scheme." Udina deflected. "Hopefully we can find them and rescue them all before they get anyone hurt."

"If he wanted to free those people, he could've easily done so before the ship took off." Valern pressed, "Answer Tevos's question Udina. What did Miranda say Shepherd was going to do."

"She said," Udina finally relented, "She said, that Shepherd plans to solve the problem of Batarian slavery once and for all."

"Solve Batarian slavery?" Sparatus questioned, "What does that mean?"

"It means Sparatus," Valern explained, "That a very nearly unkillable biological weapon of mass destruction, who can spit acid and bend steel like clay, with a genius level intelligence, and the kind of charisma that founds and destroys empires, had decided to launch a one man war against the Batarian Hegemony. And unless we can stop him, he will soon turn an entire planet of oppressed slaves and betrayed pirates into his own personal army to do it. It's enough to make me feel sympathy for a group of Batarian slavers."


	2. Chapter 1

AN: Thanks everyone for the reviews and comments.

Still don't own anything here

edited the first chapter to change Tevros name to Tevos like it should be, and corrected a scene describing Shepherd to be more primarch sized, which I am putting at about 12 feet or 3.5 meters since that little fact is a bit hard to nail down. I think that might be a bit short actually, the new Guilliman model is like twice the size of a space marine which would be around 16 feet or almost 5 meters which seems a little tall for mass effect, I don't know. Shepherd only like 10 years old now anyway so lets say he still growing.

big author note at the end about universe differences and some spoilers about the future of the fic, read at your own caution, but suffice to say, we are playing a bit fast and loose with the cannon here.

reviews and critiques are welcome

Chapter 1: The Giant in the Hold

Tali Zorah nar Rayya was doing her best to hold off her all but inevitable panic attack in the hold of a Batarian pirate ship. The young Quarian had set off on her pilgrimage to find something of true value for the Quarian migrant fleet a bit sooner than she probably should have. She was only just barely an adult and exploring the wider galaxy at her age was a little risky, but she was the daughter of an admiral, and a genius engineer in her own right. She was destined for greater things, so it was natural that she would have to take on greater challenges than most and accomplish more than the average Quarian was expected to. She had had a plan as well, to succeed beyond the wildest expectations of her father or anyone else, all without actually putting herself in too much danger.

Elysium had been a perfect place to start. The world was full of opportunity, and humans did not share all the biases against Quarians that other races had. With her skills it would've been easy enough to earn a good job in some repair or research company, helping humans adapt their home brewed tech to the galactic standard, and if her own innovations caught on with the efficiency obsessed humans she could get rather rich quite quickly. She would've returned to the fleet not just with a new and functioning ship to join the flotilla, but contacts in the SA tech industry who would know that if they wanted a job done right they would go to a Quarian to do it.

Then not more than a month after she had made planet fall, and just a week after she had started a job she was certain she could climb the ranks with, the Batarians went and attacked the planet and captured her as a slave.

This was a bit of a set back for her plans.

'Not an impossible set back' she scolded herself. The Batarians needed engineers the same as everyone else. She was certain to get a job repairing spaceships of some kind. She just had to bide her time, lure the Batarians into a false sense of security by acting subservient. Then she would need to disable her explosive slave collar, hijack an unguarded interplanetary ship that could be piloted by a single person, and make a run for nearest mass relay. That was all, and then she would be right back on track, with a new spaceship for her troubles. Yeah, this was doable.

Oh god she was going die. She was going to be sold to some Batarian pervert with a Quarian fetish, raped, and left to slowly die in an exposed suit while the sick monster jacked off to her dying moans. This was not how things were supposed to end! This was just so unfair! What was she going to do?!

"Hey bucket head!" A female voice called to Tali from a nearby cage. "Yeah chicken legs I'm talking to you, pay attention for a second will ya?"

Tali looked in the direction of voice as she pulled her mind away from her rapidly deteriorating mental state. The woman was covered in a camouflaged poncho that obscured most of her features. She seemed to be leaning against a very large pile of rags, or ponchos or something with the same splattering of green and brown colors. Oddly she seemed to be the only person in her cage. All the other cages were either full to the brim or completely empty.

"Yes?" Tali asked the girl hesitantly. "What do you want?"

"Is it true that you Quarians are some of the best hackers in the galaxy?" The girl inquired.

"What?" Tail asked rather confused about the sudden interrogation.

"That's what people always say about all you anemics." The girl explained in a voice both condescending and strangely earnest, like she actually thought she was complimenting Tail. "Give a bucket head your network password and you'll have all your bank accounts cleared out by the afternoon. So is that true? Are you a leet haxor?"

"I think we both might have better things to worry about than racial stereotypes." Tali deadpanned back to the girl, growing more than a little frustrated at the name calling.

"Hey no need to blow a gasket." The girl responded, but before she could continue the large pile of rags she was laying on suddenly shook her quite violently. It seemed there was someone under her. And now that Tali really looked at the pile, it seemed that there was some kind of human face half shrouded near the top of the pile. The girl glared at her apparent companion before rolling her eyes and continued.

"Look," The girl continued, her voice now a bit annoyed but less insulting, "What I mean to say is, if we could get you an omnitool or something, do you think you could do something about the bombs tied to everyone's necks?"

Were they actually planning some kind of escape attempt? That was insane! Even if they could break free of the cages, they were a dozen or so armed guards in the cargo hold alone. Maybe another two or three hundred in the ship, and no way to even hope of escaping without killing them all, hijacking the ship, and hoping they could get it through a mass relay before the other pirate ships in the fleet blew them all to pieces. Still though, Tali wasn't going to get out of here on her own, and maybe they did have a real plan about how to escape alive.

"I can crack an omnitool easily enough." Tali explained, it wouldn't hurt to play up her talents and bit, and more importantly convince these two not to just throw their lives away. "But it's not that easy. The collars will be on a closed circuit, only accessible from a few select omnitools or terminals. Get me access to one of them and I can get them all off. If you can figure out which one. And get to it before they blow your head off. And they moment they come off you can bet the captain of this ship will be alerted and probably vent the atmosphere in here to knock us all out."

"Could you hack the ship's systems to stop that? The whole venting atmosphere thing."

Tali's instinct was to say no and turn the pair's energy to a more possible means of escape, but she couldn't speak for a moment. She had locked eyes with the hidden face in the rags for just a second. Part of Tali's mind, the part that spent its free time figuring out how to disassemble any machine she came across, noted that the eyes were a little too far apart. As if the whole face had been stretched out a bit. Most of her mind couldn't think of anything though for that second. Those eyes held her. They judged her. Weighed her, like a master engineer getting a feel for a new tool. She wasn't sure how she matched up to those eyes, but she didn't want to come up short. She felt like she had just presented a machine she had made to her father, and was waiting for his approval or critique. The eyes released her as quickly as they had caught her.

Now Tali found herself thinking about the problem. Really thinking about it, and carefully, not rushing to any conclusion. She had not gotten a good look at the ship when she was brought in, but she had a decent guess as to the make and model from what she had seen of the interior. Ironically, the Migrant Fleet used many of the same old discarded ship designs that most Batarian pirates favored. The main frame shouldn't be that different from what she was used to, and its security would've been written by Batarians, who were not the best at keeping their ships in proper working order in the first place. She was confident she could get into the network. The question was could she write viruses on the fly good enough to crack the ship's VI security before the room depressurized. It would be close.

"Maybe." She finally answered.

"Maybe?!" The girl exclaimed, "We don't exactly have the luxury for maybes right now."

"Well I won't know till I'm in the network and see what I'm up against." Tali said defensively, "Push comes to shove we could just force the doors open. They're not going to vent the whole ship just to deal with us."

"That would sort of let all the guards outside come in to have a go at us though."

"Dealing with the guards is your problem, not mine. I'm your 'chicken legged leet haxor' you're the muscle here."

"Heh," The girl laughed, "No I'm the sexy heroine and the brains of this outfit."

"Could've fooled me." Tali interrupted

"Shut it." The girl quipped back glaring at Tali, as she thumbed back at her bed of rags. "The big guy here is the muscle. What do you think big guy? Can you make do with a maybe?"

"It's good enough." The rags responded in a voice deep and gravely enough to make the inside of Tali's lungs reverberate. After that the group fell silent. Time slipped past slowly, as the rag man seemed to wait for something to happen. His partner was less inclined to enjoy the silence though and eventually spoke up.

"I'm Jack by the way," the now named Jack suddenly clarified. "The big guy here is Shepherd."

"Tali Zorah nar Rayya," Tali responded, "do you two have an actual plan to escape?"

"Not exactly," Jack explained.

"Do you at least have an idea about how to escape? Besides doing the impossible I mean."

"Well again no. See the thing is, we haven't really been caught yet," The girl in the cage claimed with a perfectly straight face, "The current goal is actually to hijack the ship, and then see how things play out from there."

"I'm sorry what?" Tali asked in confusion.

"Quiet." The rags ordered in that almost impossibly deep voice. "Here comes our chance."

Their chance appeared to be a rather large red armored Krogan. Tali thought he was part of the Blood Pack, a Krogan mercenary band who took on the toughest jobs those with money could offer. The Batarian pirates had used squads of them to back up their attacks on Alliance military installations to keep the SA from defending their civilians while the slavers plied their trade. The Krogan's face was badly scared but still youthful looking somehow. He carried a rather large shotgun in one hand and a electrical prod in the other he was using to force the future slaves away from the bars. As he passed the pile of rags he jabbed it hard, after a moment or two the pile shifted back away from the bars with a grunt and a glare. The Krogan froze up for a moment as those eyes captured him as they had Tali. The Blood Pack member also took a half step away from the cage. But after that moment he grunted and turned to walk away.

* * *

Okeer, Krogan warlord, Blood Pack Battlemaster, rachni queen slayer, terror of the turians and despoiler of a dozen worlds, was board out of his skull. This was nothing new to him, after the 'rebellions' his radical views had seen him driven from Krogan society, and he had spent many a long year doing nothing of any real consequence as he scrounged together resources for his greater goal. Joining the Blood Pack had promised him a chance to actually fight from time to time again, but even during the rachni wars every battle had been followed by endless hours of drudgery and boredom.

The humans had put up a pretty decent fight, despite being caught unprepared and badly outnumbered. The fight had been finished quickly and the Batarians had retreated before any real soldiers came to put them down. So now Okeer scrolled through the data on his omnitool, marking the names of the surviving Krogan and their exploits for future reference and tracking. The Blood Pack were, by most Krogan standards, a truly detestable lot. Fighting for money and stims, instead of clan and glory. But Okeer cared little for that. The important fact was that they were still out in the galaxy fighting and facing the worst the Citadel and the Terminus had to offer. If a Krogan could live through that, and live for a long time, then his genes might actually be worth something, he might bring Okeer one step closer to completing his true goal.

Okeer was roused from his study by an odd sound that echoed through the cargo hold. It was half a growl, half a whimper, with a chittering undercurrent like some kind of insect. It was a fair approximation of a thresher rat's warning cry. The thresher rat was a scavenger from the Krogan homeworld of Tuchanka, that would often flee from any danger that it faced while screaming a warning nearby rats of the danger. Thus this cry was often imitated by Krogan youths to imply that another Krogan was running away from a challenge he lacked the courage to face on his own.

In off itself it was not that odd a thing to here amongst a bunch of bord Blood Pack members who were often young and dumb enough to start fights when they should be guarding and intimidating the slaves into submission. But it had not come from the Blood Pack. It had come from a man sitting in a pile of dull rags, in a cage in about the middle of the hold. And it had come just after that man had been electrocuted by a passing member of the Blood Pack. Okeer was impressed that any human even knew what a thresher rat was, muchless how to imitate one, or the effect it might have on a young Krogan with something to prove. It was still a unbelievably stupid thing to do that would get the man pounded into a pile of mush. Should be entertaining to watch.

When the young Krogan in question heard that cry he did something of a double take at the rag man. He was stunned at first, no doubt for the same reason that Okeer was. The young Krogan's silence quickly gave way to rage though. The lad would never have taken that from one of his peers, or even from a full battlemaster, no way he was going to take that from some human slave.

"You got something to say to me slave?" The Krogan demanded slamming into the bars of the cage.

"Nothing that could be worse than looking at your face coward," The rag man replied, his voice was deep and gruff, patronizing and condescending, a judgemental father who knew he would soon have to put his son is his place. "Going around shocking wretched slaves, safely locked behind bars from you. So much for Krogan pride."

"Big words for a man taken without a fight." The Krogan retorted as he began to pace around the cage like a predator.

"I might be worried if you were a proper Krogan fighting for a mate back home," The man declared rushing down the path to destruction. Maybe he thought being killed by the Krogan would be less terrible than being a Batarian slave. Okeer could respect that, the desire to die with his boots on. Honor was good, living to fight on and help your people was better.

"Instead," The man continued pouring oil on the flame, "Your just some jumped Batarian lap dog attacking undefended planets for a quick pay out. Can't blame you for giving up on that dream though, I can't imagine the poor humpless girl desperate enough to give you a shot at her."

"Say that to my face human!" The Krogan shouted as he slammed himself against the cage door. "Come out here, and let me show you what a real Krogan can do!"

"I see no reason to trounce you just so your boss can blow my head off." The rag man declined pointing to his throat with a rather large finger. "Take off this collar and I'll give you a fight to write any legend about."

"Okeer!" The Krogan shouted towards the front of the hold, where Okeer lounged with a few more Blood Pack members and a few Batarians. "Do me a favor and release this slave for me! I need to teach him some manners!"

"Garn," Okeer called back, "If one human can goad you so easily, maybe I should have you stand there and take his barbs till you learn to control yourself for once. On the other hand this trip is as boring as a Salarian poetry slam, so I guess this could be a little fun to watch."

"Okeer!" One of the Batarians yelled at the Krogan, "Your paycheck, as well as mine is riding on these slaves getting to Torfan in one piece! I won't have you brutes breaking the merchandise!"

"Oh lighten up," Okeer retorted, "The slaves have to learn sooner or later not to talk back to their betters. What cage is that Garn?"

"415." Garn answered, "He's the only male in there so it should be easy enough find the right collar."

Okeer looked puzzled at that, and after glaring at his omnitool for a moment he spoke again. "There are no prisoners listed in 415. What's going-"

Before he could finish that thought, there was brief flash of light followed by a resounding crash. Okeer recognized the blue after trail ripping out of the cage of a biotic charge. The rag man had used a mass effect field to create a tunnel of massless space through which he could launch himself at the Krogan with mind blowing speed. Normally such a power was used to quickly close the distance for shotgun attacks or to outflank entrenched enemies. Most people wouldn't dare use such a power on a krogan, since it left the attacker within easy reach for the krogan to snap them in half. Most people wouldn't have tried to charge through the cage's steel door as well as the krogan on the other side. Most people weren't that massive though.

The man was a giant. Three meters tall at the very least, maybe even four. He towered over the cages and all the humans in them, like a full grown man standing next to little children. Honestly he made the krogan he had pinned between his cage's torn off doors and the bars of the next cage over, look miniscule. How the hell had the Batarians managed to catch something like that? Unless they hadn't. Okeer noticed that the man had no collar on his neck. That was not a good sign. Well things were getting interesting now at least.

As Tali, Okeer and everyone in the whole room, except for Jack, struggled to process just what had just happened, Shepherd grabbed the cage door he had torn off to get at the krogan and then casually threw it back over his shoulder towards three Batarians on a cat walk over looking the cargo hold. All three fell to the ground, knocked from the gantry by the passing missile, their shields broken, their bodies twisted into mangled heaps by the force of the hit. Then the Giant grabbed the stunned krogan and threw him over head down the corridor of cages into a another pair of Batarians smashing them beneath the krogan's bulk. In a few passing seconds the giant had disabled half the guards in the cargo hold.

"Don't just stand there shoot him!" Okeer ordered, as he snapped free from his stupor, shoving past the Batarian commander towards the giant as he and his Blood Pack readied their weapons.

The Giant smirked and took off to the side, putting the valuable cargo of slaves between the pirates and their enemy. The Batarians and Blood Pack hesitated to kill their pay day, as Shepherd closed in on another pair of pirates. Before either Batarian could react, Shepherd's arms snapped out and caved in both their chests, crushing shields and armor as the giant tore past them.

Behind him, another seven Batarians rushed over from the other side of the room trying to hunt Shepherd down. Jack appeared behind them, having left her cage in the confusion of Shepherd's assault. Before any of the Batarians noticed her, she had created a singularity in their midsts, dragging all six into the center of the sudden gravity vortex, draining their shields and shredding their armor. Jack then casually detonated the vortex with a simple biotic pull to destabilize it, throwing the Batarians into the neighboring cages as waves of dark energy pulsed out of the collapsed mini black hole. Not all of them were dead, but Jack had no problem taking their guns and throwing them to the people in the cages on either side of them.

Two of the Krogan charged towards the approaching giant as behind them the last Batarians still seemed paralyzed with fear. Their claymore shotguns roared as they blasted at Shepherd, but the shots slammed against a biotic barrier surrounding the giant without effect. The guns went silent as their inner mechanism tried desperately to cycle the heat and prepare another shot. They had no time though. Shepherd balanced on a heel and snapped two kicks into both the krogan's skulls. The stunned Blood Pack fell to their knees and took another pair of knees to their temples as the giant walked passed their unconscious forms.

Okeer cried his challenge to the monster before him and formed his own singularity in the path of the advancing primarch. Shepherd leaned into the vortex of gravity before jumping into the air and twisting up and over the vortex. Just as he reached the far side of the singularity in a parody of an orbit, Jack detonated it with a biotic throw and launched Shepherd through the air towards his last few targets. He twisted as he fell and came down in a spinning kick, scything through the assembled pirates. Okeer growled and ducked under the flying primarch as the paralyzed Batarians were smashed into the ground, their bodies twisted and broken by the strike.

Shepherd landed easily and spun around, snapping another kick at Okeer, who again ducked and dodged to the side. As he passed, Okeer brought his modified claymore to bear and fired off two point black shots as his assailant. The first caught Shepherd in the chest, stripping away the last of his barrier and driving a few pellets into his stomach. But Shepherd was already on the move. He avoided the second blast, grabbed the overheated shotgun and pulled it from Okeer's grasp.

Okeer threw himself forward to get within the primarch's reach, holding his arms close to his chest he threw two quick jabs at the human, who pulled back to avoid them. Shepherd spun another kick at the old krogan, who twisted, ducked and slid under the blow. Okeer rushed forward, shoulder checked the giant and threw him back into one of the cages. Shepherd bounced back quickly sending three quick jabs at Okeer, who again seemed to slip down and under the giant's strikes, swinging his head around from the side as he dodged, Okeer brought his fist up hard into Shepherd's kidney in a wild swipe.

Shepherd again gave ground to pull out of Okeer's range, his eyes wild with passion and excitement at the sight of the old Krogan's determination and skill. As he came back his feet seemed to stumble over the bodies of one of the fallen Batarians. Okeer smiled at the weakness and surged forward, but Shepherd managed to hook a foot under the Batarian and he snap kicked the corpse at the Krogan warlord. Again Okeer ducked and twisted around the body flying at him, but now his movement was committed, and as his head came up past the dead Batarian, his face came to meet Shepherd's swinging fist.

It had been more than a few centuries since Okeer was last forced to see stars dance before his eyes, as his head was snapped back. He tried to get his feet back under him to dodge what he knew what would follow, but it was no good, he had been partially lifted off the ground and he had no traction. The second fist came round from the other side and Okeer was left fighting to see anything at all, as he mind threatened to black out. He felt Shepherd grab one of his arms, followed by the cold numbness of a stasis field covering it, and then nothing but searing pain from that elbow down, before at last he blessedly passed out.

* * *

"Here's your miracle bucket head." Jack called to Tali, snapping her out of her stupor as she threw her Okeer's severed arm contained in a stasis field complete with omnitool undamaged and running. The omnitools main components were hardwired into the armor itself, and required a DNA key to open. Since the omnitool thought the stasis field encapsulated arm was still attached to Okeer, Tali easily opened it and prepared to transfer it to her own biosignature.

"If you could hurry it up with the whole freeing people and hacking the ship thing." Jack continued as she used her biotics to start pulling cage doors open and freeing the people trapped within. "That would be good. I don't think any of them thought to send out a security alert, but their omnitools probably monitor their life signs. So the captain of this ship will just have been alerted to their deaths, so right now he'll be checking the security cam footage to find out how that happened. And once he pulls his jaw off the floor at the sight of what Shepherd just did, he will probably start venting the air in here, or just popping people's heads."

"I've got the collars isolated already, they'll be off soon." Tali assured her while she tapped away at the golden holographic display. "Also, how the hell did he managed to do all that? I've never seen anything move that fast before, not even geth primes are that agile and powerful."

"Well mostly he just runs about and punches people." Jack replied, freeing more people and gathering the discarded weapons of Shepherd's victims as she went. "For most people that wouldn't work I know, but most people aren't Shepherd."

With that Jack abandoned the Quarian and made her way over to the giant in question. Most of the people who were out of their cages were now working to free the others. Soon enough the whole mass of some six or seven hundred people would be free. Shepherd himself was pulling steel bars free from the cages and using them to tie up the Krogan Blood Pack.

"They're still alive?" Jack questioned in disbelief. "How?"

"A very durable species, Krogans." Shepherd answered in a much too neutral tone.

"You pulled your punches." Jack surmised, very much aware of what Shepherd could do after spending the previous night hunting teams of Batarian special forces. She looked the giant over as well and noticed a rather large crimson stain near his gut.

"You've been shot." She observed. "You pulled your punches and got shot."

"The battlemaster was a bit quicker than expected I admit." Shepherd explained.

"Do you have any idea what your mother is going to do to me when she learns I let you get shot?" Jack demanded.

"No worse than what she's already going to do to us both for running off like this." Shepherd countered. "The wound's already closed anyway, and none of these guys are going to bother us any further. So everything's good."

"Your scheming something aren't you?" Jack accused.

"Of course I am," Shepherd admitted, "But nothing divergent from the original plan. You know what we have to do."

"Yeah I know." Jack accepted.

"Good to know you're still with me." Shepherd said with a easy smile. "What's our haul?"

"17 assault rifles," Jack said listing off the captured weapons. "Fifteen Terminators and a pair of Avengers, plus four shotguns, all claymores, and a wide variety of pistols and submachine guns."

"You would think they would have more men guarding this hold." Shepherd mused, "Six hundred people could've torn the handful of defenders they have here to pieces with their bare hands."

"Yes they could've. After the broke out of their cages," Jack countered, "While they charged down the narrow aisles all while taking automatic fire from every side as that battlemaster pops their heads off in whole swaths. These people are scared civilians Shepherd, not hardened soldiers. Even if they the gall to try something like that, they wouldn't have the nerve to carry it through."

"Yes," Shepherd said as he rose up to his full height and captured the attention of the entire room. "We will have to change all that."

"Everyone listen up!" Shepherd bellowed, startling several with the depth of his voice, "My name is Shepherd, I am a super soldier that was secretly being studied by the Alliance on Elysium and I am here to make sure you all get home safe and sound."

All true, probably anyway, Jack never bought into the idea that Shepherd might be some new race of alien, and no one would make a designer baby that could spit acid, unless they really hated their wives. It might have sounded to some like he had been made by the SA and sent to rescue them, which was not true, but no one was going to question Shepherd. No one ever questioned Shepherd, even the military and research staff back at the base.

"Unfortunately there are a little over three hundred pirates on this ship," Shepherd explained sounding a little disappointed, "And they all want to stop me from doing that. Now while I would love to just single handedly and heroically kill everyone of them myself and send us all home. If they should come back here while I cleaning house and recapture all of you, that would put me in a real bind."

It was probably his size, Jack thought to herself. Even Elcor and Krogan didn't come up to more than Shepherd's pelvis. So people spent a conversation with him straining their necks to look up into his face while the little monkey part of their brains that grew up on the african savanna is screaming at them not to make the elephant angry. Monkeys will fight lions if they think they can win, or at least get away with it. But an elephant will just step on them and be done with it. That kind of information gets passed on down the evolutionary line.

"So the best thing we can all do right now," Shepherd continued as if everything was a simple as it could conceivably be, "Is get you all armed to the teeth with as many guns, shields and armor as we can. Now lucky for us the armory is not to far from where we are right now. So we just to clear a path from here to there, and get everyone nice and well armed. And once you all are safe we can take the ship easily enough."

The crowd accepted his words as gospel. They looked nervous, fearful and desperate. Shepherd's easy confidence was infectious though, and now there was a glint of hope in their eyes. They were all on the verge of collapsing into despair just a few minutes before as they considered a possible future as slaves to the Batarians, but now they had a fighting chance. He stood before them like a vengeful father defending his family. There was something easily comforting in that and the obedience such a relationship commanded. 'Do what daddy tells you and everything will turn out all right.'

"Now," Shepherd said with a brief clap of his hands and with a smile on his face "Do we have any alliance military personnel or police officers in here?"

A few hands went up around the crowd and six men and women advanced to stand before the giant. One man was injured, a bandage holding medi-gel on his leg. He had probably been overpowered during the fighting at one of the military installations. The others were unscathed, probably taken while visiting their families at home.

"Anyone here a hunting enthusiast?" Shepherd called out gathering more men to his side. "Any gun nuts with a lot of shooting range experience? Any farmers?"

"Farmers?" Someone in the crowd asked, "I'm one but I don't know what good I can do."

"You've chased off coyotes and other preds from your farm though right?" Shepherd reasoned, beckoning the man forwards with a wave of his hand and an easy smile. "Same thing here really, only the coyotes actually do a few good things for society, so you won't even need to feel bad about shooting the pirates."

All told he now had about fifty or sixty people around him. Shepherd handed two of the rifles and three of the smgs to the uninjured Alliance military. The injured man got one of the claymores and a suggestion to use it while prone to try and control the recoil. Shepherd himself took Okeer's modified claymore, he gave Jack a third and his farmer friend the last. The rest of the rifles he handed over to the hunters, and the rest of the pistols and smgs were handed as they could be. Luckily most of the gun nuts and hunters knew each other and quickly recommended which of them were the best shots and the most athletic. Shepherd made sure Tali got a tempest, though she barely noticed as she was still wrapped up in the omnitool. Jack doubted she even noticed she had somehow been dragged up to the front of the room with everyone else.

"You sure using the civies is a good idea chief?" A marine from the alliance asked, "I'm sure with us holding down things here you could do your thing well enough."

Jack didn't doubt that. Heck she could probably keep everyone here safe herself while Shepherd went berserk on the pirates. But rescuing these people wasn't the real mission here. The real mission was to rescue everyone. Shepherd needed soldiers to pull that one off, and he would have to make them now.

"I'm a firm believer in overkill marine." Shepherd counterd, "We've got the manpower to take the ship easily enough, we just need the firepower. Tali how's hacking coming?"

"Making steady progress." Tali explained, still with her helmet turned down to her omnitool, "The captain has sealed us in here and has diverted the life support system away from us. I've connected our air vents to the adjoining rooms so we're still getting a steady flow of air, if in a round about matter. He hasn't noticed the work around yet. He also hasn't declared a general alert of the ship yet which is odd."

"He won't want the rest of the ship to know how badly things have gone here." Jack interjected, "Pirate captains live by reputation, he can't let his own men know their payday is in jeopardy or else they might start thinking they can do his job better. He'll be sending a small, loyal and skilled band to mop up things after we've run out of air."

"I love it when people underestimate me." Shepherd declared with a look of bliss on his face. "Makes things so much easier."

He turned to the soldiers, face now hardened like stone, those granite eyes of his holding theirs like a vice. "If they break in here and get these people back in those collars this whole thing will have failed badly. Your the best men we have. You will hold the line. You will show these pirate scum what real fighters can do. You WILL get everyone here back home safe and sound."

The soldiers snapped to attention, guns held at the ready, eyes full of cold fury. The attack at Elysium had taken them all by surprise. They had been taken without a fight. They had failed to protect their people, their families, their honor and their pride. But now orders had come down from on high. The stakes were high, but the victory would be greater still. They would not fail.

"I'll take everyone else with a gun," Shepherd resumed turning to the crowd at large, "We will take that armory and hold the ground in between, but that's just the beginning. We need to organize and prepare. Everyone else, start fortifying this room, strip the guards of their armor and omnitool, make barricades against the doors. Use the Krogan for that, we can't use their armor anyway. Then start organizing everyone else. Find out what people can do. Get anyone with a background in computer security on those terminals to start hacking. Get anyone with a medical background making bandages and collecting medi-gel. Get everyone else old enough to hold a gun familiar with their use.

"Once we've secured the way to the armory I'll send runners with some better guns back here. Then we start moving teams of people over to the armory and get them armed and organized into fire teams. And I mean everyone, this is not the time to think of civilian or age or anything else. We are fighting for survival and freedom. If you want to get through this alive, then you have to reach out and seize that life with your own hands. Your lives are in your hands, and we will all make it through this together.

"Jack you've got things here?" Shepherd concluded turning to his old friend away from the crowd.

"You know it." Jack answered with a smirk. "No one's getting in here while I have anything to say about it."

"Tali you're with me." Shepherd ordered, actually getting the quarian to snap her head up.

"What?" Tail stammered in confusion. "But I can do my work from here just fine. And do it much better while not getting shot at."

"Might need you hack things on the way there. Can't afford to slow things down with runners and delayed communications." Shepherd stated as he turned away from everyone and walked over to the wall of the room. The walls were all covered in heavy sheets of steel riveted in place. Shepherd drove his fingers forward into the seems between two pieces, hooked his fingers under the metal sheet and pulled it from the wall, exposing the wiring and plumbing between it and the wall to the corridor beyond. Then he drove two bars of iron from one of the cages through the center of the wall panel and into one of the doors on the side of the hold making a kind of handal for the thing. Then he pulled up, out of its grooves in the floor and off of the machinery holding it in place. The pair of Batarian guards on the other side could only stare in wonder as the door they were guarding was ripped open and then used to smash them both to the side like ragdolls.

"You won't really have to worry about being shot at anyway." Shepherd reassured her as he turned back to the crowd now sporting a three meter tall, one and a half meters wide, and four centimeter thick steel shield, that now glowed purple with a biotic barrier running around it.

"The pirates won't be able to stop themselves from desperately trying to stop the shotgun wielding wall from slowly walking towards them." Shepherd explained with a smile. "Now follow me people, to glory and freedom!"

* * *

AN: just to clarify a small matter brought up by one reviewer. This story is taking place in a AU where the Mass Effect and Warhammer galaxies are one in the same. Earth is not Terra, but it was settled in a system almost identical to that of Sol, which happened more often than you might think, and when the age of strife broke out it was knocked back to bronze age level tech and had to climb back up from nothing, following actual human history easily enough from the bronze age collapse onward.

The citadel races have never encountered any of the warhammer races, other than mankind and them only recently. The Asari first began exploring the galaxy with mass effect technology, which was unaffected by the lingering warp storms that isolated the various warhammer races, only about 2500 years ago, about half way into the age of strife. Since the citadel races only settle near the mass relays and space is a really big place, even now that the age of strife has ended and warp travel is possible once more, no one has managed to stumble into them quite yet. Since the citadel races don't travel through the warp they rarely mutate and have almost no psychers, like the Tau in 40k, and so demons don't really care about them and mostly leave citadel society alone. So citadel history has proceed just as it did in the games without much change.

Meanwhile the Emperor made the primarchs, lost them, and has launched the great crusade to reunite them. Time is weird with warp travel and there is no telling just how long Shepherd was in the warp for, but it will still be another century at least till the horus heresy breaks out. And the

Emperor will no doubt soon be very confused about how the psychic signal of one of his sons which had been steady on a single planet for about a decade, is now jumping about nearly from one side of the galaxy to the other, almost instantly and without ever entering the warp. He might need Magnus's help to track this one down.

Now you may be wondering how come citadel planets haven't been ravaged by warp storms and demon invasions like everyone else's were, while Nurgle and Slaanesh had their big slap fight? How do the Reapers play into all this? Wouldn't the Reapers have tried to wipe out the Orks and Eldar? How can Chaos even be a thing if the Reapers have been cleansing the galaxy every 50k years or so? I have answers to these questions, but they're tied into a slightly different origin story for the Reapers which kind of constitutes spoilers for the future. But it also probably won't come up for a rather long time, if I ever even get to it. I won't lie to you readers, I have only ever finished one story on this site, and I was slightly insane at the time i did that so odds are this might get abandoned, but probably not for a while yet. So for what it's worth spoilers below read at your own peril. I will delete this part of the AN if we ever get to the part where this information comes up naturally in the story.

SPOILERS: The Leviathan, the race that made the Reapers were creations of the Old Ones back during the war in heaven. Basically the Leviathans were used to transport krork and Eldar armies to assault Necron worlds that had been cut off from the warp and webway by the Doleman Gates. Their indoctrination powers were given to them to suppress their krork passengers for safe transport. But when the Old Ones began to lose control of the krorks this indoctrination proved less effective and several Leviathan were killed by their own passengers before they could reach their targets. So the Leviathan created the Reapers to do their jobs for them. They gave the Reapers souls from dead Leviathans, or just created artificial souls for them contained inside a system similar to the Eldar's infinity circuits, located at the heart of the Reapers. These souls allowed the Reapers to resist being hacked and taken over by the mechanical necrons, and meant that if the Reapers lost control of their Krork passengers they could eject their souls, self destruct their bodies, and then have new bodies made for their souls with zero consequences.

When the war in heaven came to its close and the enslavers began rampaging through out the galaxy, the Leviathan realized the true scope and threat of the warp. As they tried to come up with a solution to this problem, the Reapers came up with their own. Kill every soul bearing thing in the galaxy to reset the warp. So the Reapers converted most of the remaining Leviathan into Reapers and then spread the enslaver swarms across the galaxy to kill everything. The Reapers then left the galaxy so that their own souls wouldn't interfere with the warp resetting.

When they came back 50 thousand years later to check on how things were going, they found that they Eldar and Krorks had survived the enslavers. New life was beginning to evolve in the galaxy. And the warp had gotten even worse as the souls of all the people killed by the enslavers had filled the warp with hatred and loss. Unsure of what to do next, the Reapers contacted the Eldar, whom they had been allies with in the past, shared their concerns about the warp with them and tried to come up with a plan.

The Eldar also knew how dangerous the warp could be, and by this point had created their race of gods to suppress the warp and keep their own psychic power from further poisoning it. They were taking steps to trick the Krorks into doing the same, but with all the new races evolving and fighting each other the most the eldar could do was keep things from getting worse. They suggested that the Reapers should wipe out the younger races, but not by just killing them. Instead they should convert their souls into new Reapers, that way all the murdered souls don't pour into the warp and continue to corrupt it. If the Reapers periodically did this, than the warp should gradually weaken to the point where the Eldar gods could change it back into the more peaceful realm of souls. So the Reapers built the mass relays, planted examples of mass effect technology throughout the galaxy and periodically swept through it to wipe out developing civilizations lured into a dead end tech path that could never pose a threat to the Reapers or the Eldar.

The plan might even have worked. If the Eldar had kept their end of the bargain and tried to cure the warp. But the warp posed no threat to them and having the Reapers clean house every sixty thousand years or so saved them from having to do it themselves. Plus, without enemies other than themselves and the Eldar to fight, the Krorks slowly devolved into the modern Orks, not as dangerous, still impossible to completely wipe out though. So for millions of years the Reapers bravely and heroically fought against the growth of Chaos while doing their best to save the souls of the galaxy before they were lost to the predators of the warp. While the Eldar sat around making art, culture and enjoying the greatest civilization in the history of the galaxy content in the knowledge they had turned a noble race of machines into an over glorified pest control service.

The last Reaper cleansing wiped out the Protheans about ten thousand years or so before the birth of the Emperor. The Reapers foresaw humanity's eventual growth to the stars and so planted some 'prothean' ruins on mars and stuck a mass relay in orbit around pluto. But they failed to notice the gradual degradation of Eldar culture or the C'tan sleeping on mars. The Void Dragon, though slumbering was not yet fully suppressed by the Emperor, and didn't take kindly to a piece of 'Old One' tech being placed on its doormat. So the mars facility and the mass relay were both invaded by the Void Dragon's programming and were completely gutted of their power. The Void Dragon's corruption spread across the relay network, slowly but effectively, destroying many installations and allowing many races to develop free of their influence. But then the Emperor suppressed the Dragon and most of the network escaped unscathed.

When the age of terra began mankind discovered both the mars installation and the dead relay in charon, but only as inert and inactive ruins. No database of 'prothean' tech, no element zero, no means to leave the Sol system for another 13 thousand years or so when warp travel was finally perfected.

Meanwhile, the Eldar turned to a culture of hedonism and debauchery. Their gods lost power, the warp gained strength so that the first three chaos gods gained sentience. Including Tzeentch the god of innovation, technology and progress, who was riding high off the Eldar building the greatest civilization ever, allowing him to greatly accelerate the progress of technology. Especially for humans who were also guided by the Emperor.

So the age of technology happened, many races spread through the galaxy without mass effect. Humanity eventually found other relays and Reaper databases, but by that point mankind was used for flying the massive ships used for warp travel, which were simply to big for the network to handal. So mass effect was mostly ignored, to the point that after the Men of Iron uprisings the new STCs don't contain any mention of element zero or its many strange uses.

Then Slaanesh was born, the Eldar were almost wiped out, the Eye of Terror is now a thing and the galaxy was plunged into five thousand years of conflict and isolation. Luckily for the citadel races the mass relays contain some necron tech to suppress the warp around them. This was to limit the damaged the soul bearing races could inflict on the warp as they spread through the galaxy but before the Reapers came to kill them all. So the home worlds of the citadel races were only ever hit by warp storms near the beginning of the age of strife when papa Nurgle was still showing Slaanesh the back side of his pimp hand. They have ancient legends of demons and monsters invading their worlds, but no one really believes them.

So yeah you can probably imagine just how much Sovereign is freaking out at the thought of how out of control things have gotten.

I hope that clarifies things. If you have any questions about this, feel free to PM me for more.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Spectre's on the Move

Nihlus Kyrik, a Turian spectre, wondered to himself, not for the first time, if the elevators in the Citadel were intentionally designed to slow down for people who were almost late. The timing of a person's arrival was a powerful diplomatic tool. To arrive too early suggested subservience, too late suggested insult. For most the target was to arrive just slightly late, to assert independence without a full insult. If a Councillor slowed down the elevator just slightly and they could put those meeting with them on the back foot by forcing them to imply an insult they had never meant to. It was a viable strategy, Nihlus thought, but he also had found the elevators just as slow when he had come early to a meeting, so maybe they were just poorly designed.

Truth be told, Nihlus just wanted to be angry with something other than the Councillor he was coming to meet. He had been oh so close to linking several major drug smuggling rings, operating out of the traverse into Salarian space, to high level players in the Eclipse mercenary gang. Just another day or two and could've ambushed one of the largest drug transfers he had ever heard off, and caught the accountant who could blow the whole case a mile wide. But Sparatus had called him personally and ordered him back to the Citadel as fast as conceivably possible. So now a full year of his work was in the hands of an Asari Justicar who was just as likely to kill everyone without interrogating them and consider her work done.

'Don't let it eat at you.' Nihlus thought to himself as he stared at the little elevator icon that supposedly revealed how far up the building had come. 'There is one good thing about the galaxy's real scum. You always get another shot at them.'

Finally the elevator reached its destination, and Nihlus exited it. The Councillor's secretary smiled at Nihlus and sent him right into the meeting. Nihlus passed by the heavy doors that closed behind him, and was pleased to see his fellow Spectre Saren Arterius present. It's always nice to see an old friend again after all, but Nihlus wondered just what would possess the Council to bring the both of them to bear at once?

"Nihlus, welcome." Sparatus started nodding towards a seat across from his desk, next to one Saren already occupied. "Thank you for coming so promptly. I know you were on the verge of something major, but the Council needs you both for more important matters."

"Of course Councilor." Nihlus said graciously, stamping down on his own frustrations. "Good to see you again Saren."

"It's alway good to know you're working with someone competent." Saren responded with a nod, his sub vocals were a bit sarcastic, but not enough to be rude, just this side of self deprecating really.

"I won't waste your time gentlemen." Sparatus continued, sub vocals flat and business like. "I trust you both have been following the situation on Elysium?"

Both Spectres nodded. Vorcha miners toiling on airless asteroids ten days away from the nearest mass relay were following the situation on Elysium. It seemed that the news media and rumor mills had nothing to talk about except the tragedy there, and speculating on just how many worlds the humans were prepared to burn to the ground in vengeance.

"One of the the pirate ships that involved in the attack," Sparatus explained, "Left the world carrying a potentially dangerous rogue element, that the Citadel needs dealt with as quickly as possible."

"This is Case White," Sparatus said forwarding a file from his omnitool to the two Spectre's. "It contains several plans for how the Batarian Hegemony might be destabilized through several slave uprisings on key planets, leading to social upheaval and possibly full revolution. These plans were designed by the STG with input from several Hierarchy military theorists. We have good reason to believe that this uncontained radical might attempt to implement Case White, particularly operation Inoculation."

"How could this radical have gotten their hands on such sensitive data?" Nihlus asked. "The details of these plans should be carefully guarded correct?"

"We couldn't be dealing with a rogue spectre or something?" Saren asked in disbelief at the idea.

"Not one of ours." Sparatus assured them, "Nor are they strictly working from this play book. But they are likely attempting something along similar lines. The Council needs you two to head to the pirate world of Torfan. The pirate moon is most likely destination for the radical in question. If allowed to act freely, the radical might not only initiate a slave uprising amongst the humans taken from Elysium but might also be able to forge an alliance, or at least a working relationship with the pirates operating out of the moon. If they are successful, they could use the pirates and smugglers of the Verge to insert destabilizing elements into Batarian space."

"The Council is afraid that this rogue element," Nihlus probed, his own sub vocals conveying his doubt. "Might lead a slave uprising that leaves them on positive terms with the pirates trying to get rich off the sale of the very same slaves? And then will get those very same pirates to turn on the Hegemony? Despite the fact that Batarian pirates are some of the biggest racial supremacists in the galaxy?"

"It's not completely unthinkable." Saren interjected, though he also sounded doubtful, or at least unwilling to fully support the idea. "For all their pride, these pirates usually raid Batarian colonies as often as they hit human worlds. Or at least they did, before the Hegemony started paying them attack the System Alliance. Wouldn't be easy though. Just who is the rogue element?"

"John Shepherd." Sparatus said, and handed them a paper dossier. A physical stack of papers, files, photographs and even some handwritten documents. Not an electronic file transferred through interceptable radio waves from omnitool to omnitool, like the Citadel's plans to bring down one of its own member states just were. Not a datapad disconnected from a network that might be easily transferred to an omnitool or other such computer. A stack of very real papers, that are completely and totally unhackable, easily destroyed and could only be lost by being physically stolen. Nihlus had never seen something like this in his entire life. He had heard of such things. Secrets so important that they were trusted to specific people, not systems or security procedures, but never in his life had he ever expected to see such a thing.

Nihlus and Saren just stared at the innocent stack of papers for what felt like minutes on end. Finally, and all so hesitantly, Saren reached for the dossier and opened it. Nihlus leaned over to the side, to read the document alongside Saren. At first he didn't believe what he was reading. And evidently neither could Saren.

"The humans have made a giant?!" Saren decried, his voice furious, his sub vocals in disbelief.

"Seems that way." Nihlus commented, "And a damn good one too by this data. These reaction times alone would make for a monstrously capable soldier."

"In the interest of all fairness." Sparatus commented, his voice still perfectly neutral and controlled, "There is no evidence that the Alliance itself is behind his creation. They were just the ones who found him."

"Yes," Saren mocked his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Which is just what they said for everyone of those genetic abominations they picked up under Valern's nose. Everyone of which ended up in a military research station. But this has got to be too far Councillor. This isn't just optimising combinations, or flipping a few genetic switches. This is a complete and radical reconstruction of the human body. This has to break just about every law the Citadel has on genetics."

"My feelings on the subject as well." Sparatus said, the slightest tinge of frustration creeping under his voice. "Yet that very complexity of the alterations gives the Alliance its best defence. Their military is simply not capable of making something of this scale. Not without centuries of research leading up to it."

"But if the Alliance didn't make him," Nihlus interjected deeply puzzled, "Then who did?"

"No one knows. Valern's investigation was inconclusive and ran out of leads." Sparatus dismissed. Nihlus might have imagined it, but for just second it seemed like Saren and the Councillor exchanged a look with each other. Nihlus glanced from one to the other, but didn't press the subject.

"At the very least," Saren continued changing the subject. "This monster might just be able to intimidate the pirates into cooperation. So what exactly is our mission? Find Shepherd and put a few holes in his guts?"

"Don't take the giant lightly Saren." Sparatus chided, "If this was a kill mission we would be sending another dozen Spectres to back you two up."

Saren was physically taken back. Nihlus felt his eyes widen at the statement, while he made the sub vocal equivalent of a long, drawn out, low whistle. Sparatus locked eyes with both of them to drive the point home.

"And while genetic tampering is outlawed for good reason, as you of all people should know Saren." Sparatus continued, eliciting a down cast look from the older Spectre that left Nihlus slightly confused, "There is no reason to feildstrip a rifle in the trench muck. Shepherd is here now, and if the Alliance can figure out how to artificially mimic a tenth of what his body does naturally they will single handedly double the life span of every race in the galaxy. And I don't think I need to tell either of you just how valuable a fifty year old Salarian scientist would be."

"No at this point," Sparatus said standing up from his chair and taking a place by the window looking out over Pressidium and the Citadel at large. "Shepherd is an asset to the scientific community, so if at all possible the Council wants him to still be alive at the end of this. That is the unanimous opinion of the Council."

"It is also unanimous opinion of the Council." Sparatus stressed to the two Spectres, "That the Hegemony can not be allowed to fall under the Alliance's influence. Your mission is as follows: Make your way to Torfan as quickly as possible. Identify Shepherd. If he's not there, he probably hijacked one of the pirate ships, find out what happened to him and apprise us of the situation. If he's there, make contact with him and do everything you can to keep him under some kind of control."

"A joint Hierarchy and System Alliance fleet is being prepared to rescue the human slaves from Torfan." Sparatus said with a hand wave, opening a holographic star map detailing planned fleet movements that would bring some sixty ships together in Verge three relay jumps removed from Torfan. "It will take another six to eight days to assemble the fleet and strike. Keep Shepherd on Torfan until those ships arrive. They should bring individuals from the Alliance capable of curtailing the giant and bringing him to heel. Convince him to wait if you can, help him sabotage the pirates to keep the slaves from being moved from Torfan if you must. Even help him seize the moon itself with the captured civilians if you absolutely have to."

"BUT," Sparatus ordered turning back to the two Spectres. "Do not under any circumstances allow Shepherd to secure the assistance of any of the pirate captains. Do everything you have too to sabotage those dealings. Get those ships off of Torfan, or just destroy them outright. Do whatever it takes to make sure Shepherd uprising ends on Torfan and can't spread into Batarian space proper. Understood?"

Nihlus nodded. Saren had turned back to studying Shepherd's dossier. He seemed to be concentrating on something, and it didn't seem to be the page he was staring at. The wheels were turning in that mind, Nihlus knew. No doubt considering some way to try and take the giant down if it came to it.

"If everything goes wrong," Sparatus resumed as he took his seat once more, "Or if Shepherd never shows on Torfan, you will need to use the Case White plans to predict his movements and shore up weaknesses in the Hegemony."

"Do we really need to?" Saren asked as he looked up from the papers before him.

"Do you still doubt the threat this giant might pose?" Sparatus retorted, voice laiden the sub harmonic implication that Saren was making a fool of himself.

"No I mean," Saren explained, "Why not use the monster? If our goal is to keep the Hegemony out of human hands that can be accomplished without actually protecting their standing government."

"Saren," Nihlus interrupted, his voice conveying the danger of this line of thought, "Are you proposing we destabilize a Citadel member state that has technically done nothing wrong?"

"The Hegemony has illegally practiced slavery for centuries under the Council's nose." Saren dismissed, "They hide behind claim of protecting their own culture, but if change comes from with in who can blame the Citadel for welcoming a new more progressive regime? Like you said Councillor, sometimes we have to use the weapons we have at hand. Why not just use Shepherd to destabilize the Hegemony, then blame the Alliance for making this monster and unleashing him on their enemies. We take Shepherd into protective custody and use his existence as a political hammer to destroy any influence over the reformed Hegemony the Alliance has gained. Knock the whole bunker out with one grenade, as the old saying goes."

Nihlus held silent after his first objection. Personally he saw no real reason to spare the Hegemony the storm it had been building for itself for centuries. It would be tricky though. They would need to walk alongside Shepherd through the whole process. The revolutionaries needed to know they were just as deep in debt to the Council as they were to the Alliance, and at the same time, they couldn't leave behind any real evidence of Council involvement while collecting, or just planting, the evidence needed to discredit the Alliance over Shepherd's actions. A risky move to be sure.

"No," Sparatus said at last with a shake of his head. "The risk of human ascendancy is too great to be worth the purely moral gain of destroying one backward practice in a galaxy full of them. Not to mention, the chance of Shepherd himself slipping out of our grip at the end and continuing his mad plans from the shadow."

Saren nodded accepting the Councillor's decision. Nihlus wasn't too sure though. Perhaps it was stress of being called here to soon. Or perhaps he was just slightly incensed at the Councillor and Saren seeming to speak around him at times. Nihlus himself wasn't too sure of the exact reason, nonetheless he pressed the issue.

"So that's it then?" He questioned, his voice edging just shy of insubordination, "The Council is just going to turn its back on a chance to finally reform the Hegemony? It's just going to kick this problem down the road for another generation to deal with while people continue to suffer? And for what? Out of fear of humanity?"

"What brought this on Nihlus?" Saren asked in stunned disbelief, while Sparatus held silent. "You've never spoken out against the Hegemony so vehemently before."

"My apologies," Nihlus gave in, while trying to rein himself back in. "It's not the Hegemony its humanity. I've never understood why so many in high command seem to have it out for the young species. None of the rank and file I've ever served with had the same issue. It can't be simple wounded pride over the Relay 314 Incident like everyone else seems to assume. There is no shame in being take surprised by new enemy tactics, and if the fighting had dragged on the Hierarchy would've adapted and triumphed in the end. What real reason does the Citadel Council of all things have to deal with mankind like an enemy that needs to be curbed?"

The silence held in the room for a few seconds, before it was broken by Sparatus's laughter of all things. The older man smiled and shook his head, while Saren leaned back in his chair as if relaxing. Nihlus felt some embarrassment creeping into him at this, like he had felt back in the military academy when he had missed something the rest of the class found so obvious.

"Tell me Nihlus," Sparatus at last answered him, "Did you have any siblings growing up?"

"One," Nihlus confirmed surprised and suspicious at the change in topic. "An older brother, serving in the government's works projects."

"I see," Sparates nodded sagely to himself. "And how old were when your parents started treating you two differently?"

"What do you mean?" Said Nihlus slightly insulted at the implications.

"How old were you," Sparatus pressed, "When you were first punished for something that your parents let your brother get away with? Or when did you first realize that your brother's punishments weren't as bad as yours? That your parents expected better grades in school from you, then a they did from him? When did you first realize you two weren't being treated fairly?"

"Was it before or after," Saren chimed in, "You realized you were smarter and stronger than your brother was?"

"Well," Nihlus tried to explain, his head turned away from the two other men as they repeated a number of thought he had had himself when growing up. "Father always was a strict disciplinarian, and my brother was just very good a clearing out of sight in the nick of time."

"No he wasn't," Sparatus said with some authority despite having never known any of Nihlus's family. "Your parents knew how to properly raise their kids, so they pushed the two of you as far as you could go to make sure you both could be the best you could be. You could go further than your brother could, so you were pressed harder. That's how it is, how it has to be."

"No two men are born the same." Saren added, "Some are smarter, stronger, faster, more inciteful, or more deceitful than others. For society to grow the best men must be pushed as hard as they can, and be pushed into the sectors of society where they can do the most good. And the more talented a man is, the more damage he can do if his own moral code breaks, so the harder that code must be hammered into his head."

"The same basic truth applies to the different races of the galaxy." Sparatus further explained. "No matter how brilliant a volus banking clan might be, they can't match up to the centuries of trading experience an Asari Matriarch can amass. No matter how clever and deceptive the Drell assassins might push themselves to be, the lightning fast minds of the Salarians will always be one step ahead of them."

"And if any of the other races," Saren took over, "Except maybe the Krogan, were to gain the same numbers, industrial power, fleet size, and martial tradition that we Turians have, it wouldn't change the fact that we are faster, stronger and harder to kill than any of them. We would still dominate them in any battle."

"Thus it is necessary," Sparatus concluded, "For the three Council races to take the lead in galactic politics, to maximise the growth and progress of the galaxy as a whole."

"Are you implying Councillor," Nihlus sumized, "That humanity is being set up for leadership in the Citadel, and that's why the Council holds them to a higher standard than the rest of the galaxy?"

"No," Saren said with a shake of his head, "Humanity will inevitably become leaders in Citadel space. The Council is trying to make sure they won't drive the galaxy to ruin when they take it."

"But why?" Nihlus inquired, "Humanity isn't anything special, they aren't very strong, inciteful or long lived."

"Numbers." Saren stated simply.

"What?"

"You see," Sparatus explained, "In 2630 Galactic Standard the Volus purchased the colonial rights to a number of systems suspected to contain garden worlds but which were far enough away from the nearest Mass Relay that they weren't highly valued. The Volus thought they could make a profit off the worlds by just focusing on exploiting their mineral wealth and minimizing transportation costs. But they then found that some twenty five of the worlds they had bought were inhabited by local sentient species. The Volus followed Citadel regulation, documented information about the local races and submitted their locations and details to the Council and we refunded them the rights they had purchased."

"Turns out though," Saren continued, "The Volus had unknowingly found the impossible. Each of those worlds were inhabited by the same species, despite their technology varying from pre-agrarian to post-nuclear. And despite the fact that none of them had any access to mass effect technology or any other system of interplanetary flight."

"Impossible," Nihlus denied.

"So everyone assumed at first," Sparatus commented, "But an STG team acting under Spectre supervision collected gene samples from all of them and confirmed it. All of those worlds are inhabited by humans."

"But-" Nihlus studered unable to process this.

"It wasn't until after the Relay 314 Incident had concluded peacefully," Sparatus continued overriding Nihlus. "And we were given access to human DNA samples, that we realized the Alliance was made up of the same leading theory is that humans were used by some other species as slave labor, spread across the galaxy and then abandoned when their masters died off. Those world may have existed in isolation from each other since the protheans collapsed. Each world rebuilding itself as best it could, until the Alliance figured out mass effect and took to the stars once more."

"Across the Galaxy?" Nihlus exclaimed catching up with what Sparatus was saying.

"Two of the worlds are separated by more fifty thousand light years." Saren explained, "One is more than sixty thousand light years away from earth itself. Assuming humans even come from earth in the first place. Several old creation myths amongst the Alliance claim that humans descended to the earth from outer space you know. Perhaps humanity's ancestors remembered where they came from and their descendents thought they were speaking of some race of gods rather than their old alien overlords."

"Does the Alliance know?" Nihlus finally came to obvious question.

"Of course not." Saren denied.

"But these are their worlds," Nihlus exclaimed, "Their people left in isolation for spirits knows how long."

"Correct." Sparatus agreed, "And when the Council judges that the Alliance can handle these worlds, their existence will be made known to them. Until then this information will remain classified and not distributed outside of the Spectre corps and the top brass of the Hierarchy."

"Handle them? Why wouldn't the humans be able to handle another few dozen worlds?"

"Ten of those worlds have populations comparable to earth itself." Saren stated, "Even the Hierarchy would have trouble just having another hundred billion people dropped in their laps to deal with. And then there's Varg Star 3, as the Volus named it. A planet estimated to have a population of thirty to thirty six billion humans."

"What?" Nihlus said jaw dropping at the sheer impossibility of it. The number of planets with more than five billion people living on them could be counted with a Hannar's tentacles. Rakhana had no more than eleven billion Drell on it when their ecology collapsed and the species were nearly completely wiped out. Khar'shan, the Batarian home world was said to have a population of fifteen billion and held the title of most populated planet in the galaxy. But those numbers were severely doubted by almost every non-Batarian analyst, who instead estimated the world at a little over ten. For over thirty billion people to live on world was nothing short of insane.

"No one has any idea how they are still alive down there either." Saren continued nodding at Nihlus's confusion. "Nothing lives on that planet except humans. The pollution and fog is so thick the Volus thought the had found the galaxies smallest gas giant at first. But the people survive, endlessly toiling away in a million factories that light up day and night pouring acid smoke into the air of what should be a long dead planet."

"And that is what makes mankind potentially dangerous." Sparatus declared, "When that world gains access to the mass relays, it will become the center of the galactic economy overnight. No amount of Volus banking or Asari experience can match the shear industrial power such a population center gives to humanity. To say nothing of the endless ranks of soldiers and weapons humans will be able to throw at any problem they face. And there is no telling how many more long lost human worlds there are out there waiting to be found."

"I understand." Nihlus admitted, "That kind of power has to be used only for the galaxies benefit. If humanity gained access to all that and they weren't already dedicated to the good of all Citadel races…. The consequences could be truly dire."

"Exactly." Sparatus said the smile of a successful teacher. "And if we can't trust humanity to even manage all of their own worlds, then we surely can't trust them to manage the Batarians as well. Even worse, we can't let the thought get into humanity's head that they can just bring down a whole civilization just because it doesn't act the way they want it to."

"Know this above all else Spectres," Sparatus concluded, eyes like steel driving into the pair's very soul the important of his words. "This mission is not about the Hegemony, or the Alliance, or even about Shepherd himself. This mission is to uphold the central tenants that this Citadel was founded upon. We Turians are the military arm of an organization that its very core, is dedicated to the idea that military force is never the right solution to the galaxy's woes. The Hegemony will be reformed one day. But it will be reformed peacefully, through discussions and rational dealings between civilized people. And if the Alliance isn't interested in being rational and civilized in this regard, then we will deal with them like irrational children they want to be. You will ensure that at every turn, this mad plan of Shepherd's runs into a wall of failure. You will not allow them to just brute force their way through this problem."

"Sir!" Both Spectres shouted as they stood and saluted. Nihlus's and Saren's concerns were satisfied, their minds were made up, and their spirits were united in this grand purpose. In the end, Nihlus knew, this meant he was now going off to defend the practice of slavery from those who had every right to demand justice and vengeance for the humiliation and pain they had suffered. But that did not matter. Spectre's were not tools of blind justice. They were tools that advanced the good of the Citadel, and through it, the good of the galaxy as a whole. This would not be his proudest mission, and he made peace with that, as he prepared to do what had to be done.

Later, as he boarded a lightly armored scout craft to make for Torfan with all speed, a thought crossed Nihlus's mind. If Shepherd was a work of genetic manipulation to advanced for the Alliance to have created, and yet surely could only have been created by mankind. Did that imply, that somewhere out there, amongst the lost worlds of humanity, in the vast abyss of space too far removed from the relays for the Citadel to ever reach, there was a branch of humanity more advanced than the System Alliance?

This thought shook Nihlus for a moment. But there was much for him to do and even more to prepare for on the journey to Torfan. So he buried the thought and returned to his work. He would later regret that.

AN: Well that was a lot of dialogue. Three way conversations are annoying to write. If just two people are talking you can easily fall into a back and forth kind of rhythm and not have to go 'Jain said' 'Jack said' or some variation of that every single damn line of dialogue. But no I had to have Saren there as well making quips and interjections all the time and confusing things.

Tried to make some Alien Idioms for the Turians to use, hope they were clear in the story's context, rifle in the muck think: don't look a gift horse in the mouth, whole bunker with one grenade, think two birds one stone kind of thing. Let me know what you all think, and about the whole sub-vocals to add context to their speech, is it more immersive to make the alien culture seem more real, or just needlessly confusing.

Sparatus calling Saren to account over genetic tempering is a reference to the Mass Effect Evolution comic where Saren had to kill his brother to stop him from activating some reaper tech on the Turian home world shortly after the first contact war. Its a good comic you all should read it.

The council first discovered other lost colonies of mankind about five years after first contact was attempted with the Yagh that ended with the Citadel team being massacred and eaten. So its understandable that they hesitant to send a welcoming party to these worlds for some time. Then the Alliance showed up and now those worlds are wrapped up in intergalactic politics.

Thanks again to everyone who read and reviewed.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Captain's Dilemma

"Suppressing fire!" A voice on the monitor called out as captain Jar'kannath watched in mounting horror as the best troops he had on board were torn apart by the advancing giant and his rebel slaves.

"Grenade out!" Another soldier called as the storm of fire battered harmlessly against the giant's shield. Fast as a whip, the shield shot to the side and smacked the explosive disk back at the Batarian pirate marines. It exploded mid air killing a man and knocking two more out of cover. The giant leaned to the side allowing the men behind to unleashed their own hail of fire killing the two marines almost instantly.

"First rank fire till you overheat, drop to a knee and let the second rank fire." That Monster called back to his men as he advanced, "Don't give them a second free, keep their heads down!"

Firing by rank. A tactic as old as projectile weapons, largely abandoned in ages when the rate of fire per soldier was measured in hundreds of rounds per minute. But in those tight corridors with the giant's shield to provide cover, the tactic was proving remarkably effective. His men could hardly peak out from cover for more than a half second before their shields were torn to shreds and they either pulled back or died.

A half second should have been more than enough time to send the shots down range needed to kill their unshielded adversaries, but with that damn giant in the way every shot was intercepted and rendered harmless. Breaching shields like that were also an age old boarding tactic, the captain had a few ones in the armory equipped with their own energy shields for extra protection. They worked well enough until someone got a grenade behind them or ambushed the bearer from a side passage or the doorway to another room.

The grenades used by his men were the standard kind used throughout the galaxy. Small flat cylinders with magnetized sides to stick to most surfaces where they could be detonated remotely or by proximity. Thrown slow enough to not trigger most mass reactive shields or barriers, they should be able to either get behind the giant or explode against that hulking great hunk of steel he carried. The first would've shredded his flesh with shrapnel the second broken his arm with the impact. But the man just swatted them away like a zath ball.

That just shouldn't be possible. He must have struck them just on the side to avoid the magnetic effect. And he must of struck them with just enough force to destabilize the explosives inside but not enough to immediately detonate them. He wasn't just impossibly fast but also inhumanly precise and controlled. How by the pillars of damnation was he supposed to stop this monster?

The giant continued to press his advance. As he walked by a doorway to one of the smaller cargo holds, he lifted the claymore shotgun he carried to the side and unloaded it into the soldier that opened the door to try and flank him. Just one shot was all it took to deplete the poor pirates shields and drop him dead. The giant then fired another shot into the wall, blasting the second marine in the room breaking his shields and knocking him down. The sudden loss of his partners left the third would be ambusher stunned and speechless, easy prey for the quartet of humans who rushed into the room and finished the three off.

That was the third time such an attempted flanking maneuver had failed in such a spectacular way. It was as if the giant had seen through the walls. Effortlessly predicting and tracking their movements. It was as if their every act just played into his hands and further sealed their doom.

"If anyone has any suggestions," Jar'kannath called to the bridge crew at large, "I'm all ears."

The crew held silent. Most staring hopelessly at their own security monitors. A few men typed away furiously at their consoles trying to fight off the increasingly dangerous cyber attacks that threatened to cripple the ship. Only old Sul'darron held his true post, and kept the light cruiser flying in formation with the larger pirate fleet. Jar'kannath swore to himself and returned grimly to studying the monitor before him.

"Cyber attacks are getting worse," Harkon the ships second in command dryly commented. The man had concluded they were all doomed shortly after the Blood Pack had been defeated. His total lack of interest in their progressively worsening situation was really starting to get on the captain's nerve.

"We've lost most communication systems," the infuriating man continued. "We can still send internal radio broadcasts which should get the word out to crew members with omnitools on them. But intercom is inoperable and even the email server is down. I've got a tight beam transmitter disconnected from the rest of the network so we could call the other ships for help."

"We may as well paint a target on the ship," Jar'kannath replied in a weary voice, "The others have no reason to save us or our slaves, they'll just knock us out of the sky if they hear any sign of things going wrong here."

"They'll kill the giant as well." Harkon responded, "Sooner or later you have to come to terms with this. It's now just a question of how we will die-"

"I AM NOT DEAD YET!" The captain yelled back, "We just pulled off the greatest job of our lives! We've got the biggest payday imaginable coming to us! I won't just die like this!"

Harkon made no response. He just stared back at his captain, his eyes dead and emotionless. Jar'kannath couldn't match those eyes, he couldn't stand the thought this man who had stood alongside him through thick and thin, who had walked from the Fleet with him, who had saved his life a dozen times, who had climbed up from the very bottom of society with him, was now waiting to die. Jar'kannath pounded on one of the ship's consoles and went back to watching his men fall back from the giant's assault.

"Get on the radio," He ordered the men around him, "Tell everyone we can reach to make for the slave hold. If we can break inside and subdue the other slaves we can force that monster to surrender."

"They'll need breaching charges from the armory," Harkon pointed out, "Control of the hold's doors was one of the first thing that damn Quarian hacked from us."

"Just do it!" The captain shouted over him, "We have to do something! We can't just wait here to die!"

Before the captain could continue, one of the computer consoles in the corner of the room exploded. It had been overloaded by a sudden and violent surge of electricity that arced bolts of energy to the ceiling and walls around it. Luckily no one was hit by the blast or electrical burst, and soon the bridge crew had the fire under control as best they could.

"I think that fried the tight beam communicator." Harkon commented, "There goes our hope of getting any help."

"I told you," The captain said numbly as he considered just how badly their cyber defenses were being overwhelmed if the slaves could just blow up a console like, "They never would've helped us, just killed us all."

"I guess we'll just have to wait for the giant to do us in." Harkon answered with a shrug.

"Oh will you two just SHUT UP ALREADY!" Old Sul'daron called from the ship's helm, "Honestly it just makes me sick."

Both Batarians turned and stared at the man in disbelief. They had never heard the old man actually shout at someone before. He could out cuss a Krogan with a hangover, and often proved it to new stupid deckhands, but he never shouted at anyone.

"You two are pirates! Pillars damn it all." The old smuggler further berated them. "Did you honestly think you were going to live forever? Sooner or later, everyone lets their greed get the best of them and takes a job too good to be true. And then you bite the big one. Never thought I would get killed by a giant, but that's the galaxy for yuh. No matter how far you sail, there's always a new surprise waiting for you around the corner."

"You almost sound eager to face this." Harkon questioned in genuine confusion. "I know the work is dangerous, that doesn't mean I want to get my skull caved by some Alliance demon."

"Neither do I lad," The old man answered with a laugh. "No wants to die. But everyone does. No reason to get mad about it. We are going to die, there's nothing to do, nothing matters. So even the fact that nothing matters, actually matters. So why be sad about it?"

"I've seen so much in this life of mine." The old man continued sounding wistful, staring out into the darkness of space, into the abyss of the past. "I've got no regrets. So now all that's left is one final adventure. So are you two going to face the end like panicking sniveling cowards or are you going to meet its eyes, crest to crest and make it blink?"

"Uh sirs?" One of the men at the consoles called out to the captain, mate and pilot. "The uh slaves? They've reached the armory. And there's only like ten or twelve guys in there to stop them. I think the big one is pulling off another one the doors."

The captain and first mate mets eyes. Damn it if the old man wasn't right. Life had been a wild ride alright. The two had fought hand and tooth for everything they ever had. Two bastard sons of disgraced military caste families. Sent to the naval academies so their drunken old men could maybe get some laugh from watching them struggle. But they had never given up before. No matter how the school staff had tried to sabotage them. No matter how the other students had tried to beat them down. No matter how the navy itself had tried to sand bag them with dead end desk jobs. No matter how every upstart and wannabe in the galaxy's under belly had tried to take everything they had built for themselves in this cut throat private sector of galactic conflict. And they weren't going to give up now. And if it really was time to die, damn it if they wouldn't die with their boots on.

The captain went over to his main chair and opened a secret panel on the side. From the hidden compartment he withdrew a pair of shotguns and a bottle of absinthe. He threw one gun to Harkon as he took a long swig of the bottle. Then he threw the bottle to the old man who laughed as he downed a few gulps himself and passed it on to the deck crew.

"Get on the radio." The captain said after the alcohol stopped burning. "Tell everyone what's happening and to bunker down as best they can. The old gods willing, they can kill enough of the slaves to be left alone till the Alliance comes to arrest them."

Most of the crew took a step back and made a sign to ward off evil when the captain mentioned the old gods. Nonetheless they got to work after they got their swig from the absinthe. Even all the way out here the old superstitions held. Well let the brass god take his blood if he wants, brass veins might just block a few bullets when the time came.

"Are you with me Harkon?" The captain asked his old friend as the bottle at last came to him. "Do you want to give that giant something to remember?"

"At the very least," Harkon declared as he finished off the absinthe with one last long draw, then shattered the bottle on the floor, and grasped Jar'kannath's arm. "Let's take one of his eyes."

"That's the spirit!" Jar'kannath answered and pulled his old friend into a hug. "Old man hold the course for as long as you dare! Once that monster has choked on our bones crash us into Durrin's heavy cruiser. I always hated that man, it would be wonderful if in death we could kill him along with this demon in our hold."

"Aye aye sir." The Sul'daron answered as the bridge crew laughed and prepared for the worst.

* * *

Tali Zorah winced, as Shepherd threw the broken body of the armory's last defender casually to the side. The fight here had been brutal and short. The defenders had spread out inside the rather open room of the armory. Shepherd's boarding shield would've done him little good in there. So after he tore off the door to the room, he had thrown the door and his shield into two of the defenders before biotically charging a third. With that bit of chaos added to the room and all eyes turned to the rampaging giant in the middle of the room with a shotgun in one hand, and his other clenched into a body crushing fist. This meant that almost no one noticed when the other humans slid into the room, took cover behind the weapon racks and started picking off the distracted pirates while Shepherd all but danced around the room as a biotically shielded whirlwind of death. Tali had just about enough time to shoot one pirate before it was all over.

She had shot one pirate. She had shot him in the back as his shields fell. She had watched as her shot had put a hole right through the center of his chest and two of his vital organs. Just as she had been trained to do. She was doing her best not to think about it though. He was a pirate after all. He deserved it. He would've done the same to her. Shepherd would've killed him anyway so it didn't really matter. Really it didn't. Really. Yeah she was trying really hard not to think about it too much.

"Jenkins!" Shepherd called to the farmer he had given a claymore too, "Take half the men and all the guns you all can carry and get them back to the hold. Have Jack start sending us the new fire teams to get them equipped here. Everyone else, find some armor and a shield."

Shepherd took a seat in the corner of the room while everyone else got to work. Even seated on the floor, the man still seemed to tower over her. The only thing Tali could compare Shepherd too was the few images she had seen growing up of the geth primes that had torn their way through Quarian armies during the Morning War centuries ago. When she had been a child studying about The War in school, those machines had seemed like the most dreadful monster imaginable. They were supposedly as tough as most tanks and far more mobile, with electronic warfare systems that mimicked biotic powers, inhuman reflexes, perfect accuracy and had no morality to hold them back. But even her worst nightmares of such things didn't come close to what she had seen the flesh and blood man before her accomplish.

He was a bit taller than a prime, with more bulk and mass to his muscular frame. Even without biotics he was the fastest man here both in raw running speed, and the lightning like movements of his hands and arms. He didn't so much react to the pirates he was fighting against, as it seemed like their every move came according to his plan, as if he was waiting for them to act and had already prepared to how to counter and defeat them. She didn't doubt for a second that if it came to it, Shepherd could pull a geth prime apart with his bare hands. It was all just impossible to think off. In more ways than one.

"How's the hacking coming Tali?" Shepherd called to her, after she had attached a shield generator to her suit and added a pistol to her arsenal. She didn't recognize the model, but the grip felt comfortable enough in her hand, and the sights were well aligned. She pulled up Okeer's old omnitool and did a quick check of the systems she now had unrestricted access to.

"As well as it can." Tali answered after a short pause. "We've shut down their communications and are now knocking most of the security cameras offline. They've disconnected the navigation system and the whole engineering department from their network, so we don't have access to the big things and won't be getting them anytime soon. Though I could start opening airlocks in the crew quarters I think."

Why the hell had she said that?! She was having a hard enough time deal with shooting that one guy without volunteering to massacre the whole crew. What was wrong with her? Was she a bad person? Had killing that one guy awakened an inner and insatiable taste for blood?!

"That won't be necessary," Shepherd answered her with an easy smile. A DAMN SMILE, while she was freaking out in her head. "If you could seal off the second and third decks from the main elevator shafts, and stairwells. Just make sure to leave us access to the bridge on the main deck."

"Should be easy enough, they all have emergency bulkheads we can close and seal remotely." Tali affirmed, truly relieved that he hadn't taken up her offer. Which was a good thing she thinks.

"I'm almost surprised how easily you're breaking through their systems." Shepherd continued, "Your skills are very impressive."

Tali felt a surge of pride at his words. Which surprised her further. It felt like those times that her father had complimented her abilities and accomplishments. Was that what was affecting her? Did she see this giant as some sort of father figure she had to impress and live up to? The ratio of their respective size sort of enforced such a relationship. The last time she had had to deal with someone more than twice her size telling her what to do, had been when she was a child trying to measure up to the expectations of her parents and teachers.

There was also a strange kind of peace about the man. His abilities in combat, and attitude in command enforced this easy confidence he had about him. An unshakable conviction that things would work out as he expected, and if the world tried to defy him in that matter he would make the world itself regret it. It was similar to how her own father behaved in command situations or when dealing with the concerns and mounting panic of his ship's crew. Tali felt that in the end, she could trust this man to accomplish what he said. It was a dangerously uncritical way of thinking, one that could easily get her into trouble.

"Mostly it's all thanks to the security specialists they must've found back in the hold." Tali said mostly to deflect and suppress that feeling of pride he had so easily sparked in her. "They have almost two dozen people with at least some hacking knowledge helping me out now, and it seems like the Batarians only have one or two crew members who are trying to stop us. You really lucked out here Shepherd getting so many useful people to help you."

"Well," Shepherd answered head half cocked to the side as he scanned the room back and forth keeping an eye on the rest of the men. "Luck does help. Mostly it's that the Batarians were raiding neighborhoods around Elysium's main tech centers and research stations. So we were more likely to get computer security and other technically minded people in groups drawn from this area."

"Wait," Tali asked, slightly suspicious. "Did you choose this ship on purpose? Knowing it had such tech experts on board?"

"Everything is a choice." Shepherd responded slightly defensively, but also a bit distracted, "This ship was an optimal target, best chance to succeed at the mission."

"What mission?" Tali pressed, his language was too vague. It made sense to look for the best chance one had in a mission. But with his power, Shepherd shouldn't have had much trouble taking over any Batarian pirate ship, even without electronic warfare support. But it sounded more like this was some part of a larger goal.

"Carlson!" Shepherd suddenly yelled over Tali's head, "Just what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

The man in question, a young gun nut who had seemed most determined to stand in the front ranks during the fighting over here, was standing over one of the downed Batarians. Amazingly, the pirate wasn't dead. He had been shot in the leg and fallen to the ground. Without any weapons and no one coming to help him, the pirate had pulled himself over to a wall, and was now holding a fist full of medigel inexpertly to his wound trying to halt the blood flow. Carlson stood over the pirate with a raised rifle and was quivering with anger.

"This is him boss." The young man answered, eyes never leaving the pirate on the ground. "I recognize the badge he was wearing. This is the four eyed bastard who KILLED SHASHA!

"You piece of scum! You killed my sister!" Carlson cried at the defenseless pirate and kicked him in rage.

"He's unarmed Carlson." Shepherd spoke capturing the young man's attention and pulling his gaze away from the pirate if only for a second. "The fight is over now, and he's out of it. You don't kill unarmed men Carlson."

"He did sir!" The boy yelled back. "Just stormed in and shot her point-"

"But you're not him son!" Shepherd interrupted, standing up and taking a step towards the pair. "You are not a murder, and your sister wouldn't want you to be one! Now lower the weapon."

The boy quivered in place for a second. Head and eyes darting back and forth between the man who had destroyed his life, and the man trying to save it. He stuttered to himself in confusion, cast one last look of pure contempt at the pirate on the floor, and let his gun slip to his side.

"I couldn't do anything…." The boy muttered to himself as he took a step back. "He just came in and shot her. I was so stunned I couldn't do anything before he knocked me down and out…."

"But you are doing something now." Shepherd said, closing the distance, going down to a knee, and meeting the young man eye to eye. "You are fighting to save everyone on this ship. Your sister's soul can rest easy knowing her brother has risen to the challenge in front of him. And one day, you will see this pirate hanged for what he did."

"Yes sir." Carlson responded, his voice shaky but growing in confidence. "You're right sir. I've got to focus on what's important."

"Good man." Shepherd concluded with a light encouraging shove to Carlson's shoulder. "Take a breather for a moment and get a drink."

The young man nodded and walked to the other side of the armory. Shepherd rose, looked down the corridor they had come up and saw another group of would be slaves coming from the hold to get weapons and armor to fight. The whole room had gone silent during the exchange, and now men noticed that a more than one of the Batarians the escapees had shot down were still moving, if only barely.

"Louise, John Boy, young Carl," Shepherd called out to three of the men who had stepped up to lead the impromptu fire teams, "Sort through the Batarians here, pile the bodies to the side and gather any of them still alive."

"You want us to treat their wounds?" John Boy asked as the other called over their men to help them, "Make sure they live to see the noose?"

"Don't waste any medigel on them," Shepherd responded with a nod, "We might need that later. Everyone else help the new guys get armed, we will be moving out soon."

"Just what the hell are you?" Tali demanded of Shepherd as he turned away from the others and resumed his seat.

"I am myself," Shepherd responded under his breath with slight melancholy, "There are no others."

"There's is no way the Alliance created you," Tali continued not sure what to make of that statement, "They wouldn't break the Citadel Accords so brazenly, and if they had there is no way they would just unleash you to be seen by so many people at once. There's going to be a thousand stories and rumors about you circulating after this, the Council is sure to find out about you shortly after."

"You're right of course," Shepherd answered laughing to himself, "I'm actually from the migrant fleet, I'm really just here to rescue you. The Admiralty Board realized the best way to hide their genetic experiments was to make them look like other races. Dozens of giants just like me have been sent throughout the galaxy to protect young Quarians on their pilgrimage."

Tali decided the best way to interrupt this nonsense was to shoot the wall next to the giant's shoulder. The man didn't even flinch. But he did stop talking and just grinned at her like an idiot.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't accuse my species of breaking the Accords again." Tali dead panned in as controlled a tone as she could muster, "We learned our lesson after we made the Geth, I don't need to hear you mocking us for it."

"I meant no offense." Shepherd apologize. "The truth is much less interesting unfortunately. No one knows where I come from, or who made me. My first memory is of waking up in the cargo hold of an Alliance cruiser after they pulled me out of a metal pod they found floating in the middle of space. Jack has the better story honestly. She got kidnapped as a child by the terrorist organization Cerberus and was experimented on to enhance her biotic powers. A Citadel Spectre rescued her a few years ago while looking for clues about where I might have come from."

"That's tragic." Tali said, not sure what else she could say in response to that.

"I think it would make for great television." Shepherd responded chuckling under his breath. "Oh don't give me that look. I've known Jack for years now, sooner or later you have to turn the tragedies you suffer into comedies or else it will drive you crazy."

"I was not giving you a look."

"You totally were. You had that set to your shoulders that Quarians get when someone tells a really bad pun or something."

"Regardless." Tali said changing the topic of conversation, how the hell did a human know how to read suit language anyway, "I wasn't just talking about her, you're fairly tragic yourself. I can't imagine what it was like to grow up without a family."

"Neither can I." Shepherd responded with a shrug.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Family is just the group you have the closest connection to." Shepherd explained scratching a series of circles around a small dot in the floor with a combat knife he pulled from a nearby shelf.

"I have no blood kin," He continued pointing at the circle closest to the dot before he scratched it out. "So the next set of connections I make becomes my new closest kin, my new family. The next circle out becomes the new closest. No matter what tragedy we might face in life, we will always have some kinship left to us. Even if all that's left is kinship with the whole of the galaxy itself."

"Huh," Tali considered, this was either surprisingly deep for a giant musclehead or…. "This kind of ability to process tragedy might be boarding on psychopathy."

"HA!" Shepherd cried, as Tali flushed beneath her helmet as she realized she had said that last part out loud. "I suppose it might at that. Oh well, I never thought I could go down in history as a sane man anyway."

"What was that?"

"Nothing important." Shepherd said waving off her questions with an easy smile. "You have a dangerously insightful mind little Tali Zorah."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Good it was one. Mind if I ask your opinion on a certain matter I've never really understood?"

"I suppose it would only be fair."

"How come the Quarians have never allied with remaining Krogan?" Shepherd asked with perfect seriousness.

"Why would we ever do that?" Tali asked in shocked outrage, "Just because we're both outcasts of the Citadel?"

Shepherd didn't answer. His eyes were turned on her with their full force. Tali did her best to suppress the feeling that some great predator was sizing her up. But she was much too angry to feel either afraid or disturbed.

"My people made an honest mistake." Tali insisted, "We were reckless I admit, but no one could have foreseen that the Geth would just make the jump to sentience like that. The Krogan intentionally dragged the galaxy down to war and violence. We are nothing like them!"

"Do you think they will ever really help you?" Shepherd finally asked.

"Who?" Tali demanded slightly taken back by the sudden change in topic.

"The Citadel Council." Shepherd pressed, pulling the rug out from under her righteous fury. "Do you think that if you follow all the rules and act suitably ashamed they will reverse three hundred years of discrimination and forgive you?"

"I-I-" Tali stuttered unable to face the thought finally spoke aloud which had plagued her people for centuries. "What choice do we have?"

"Retake Rannoch from at least 2 billion Geth with less than a hundredth of their numbers," Shepherd stated simply, with almost clinical disinterest, "Or adapt your genes to survive on another planet. The Migrant fleet can no longer really grow in size. Every ship you add increases the demand on resources it takes to maintain all other ships. Every ship brought back from a successful pilgrimage merely replaces a ship on the verge of falling apart. Without the space needed for the population to actually expand, your people have to tightly regulate new birth rates. And every year where the government underestimates the number of people it needs to replace as accidents, age, conflict and disease takes it toll is another year where the species shrinks. Every net loss in numbers is a net loss in your ability to collect resources and materials, further straining your ability to maintain the fleet.

"Even the Alliance knows that the Quarian population has decreased by almost 27.5 percent since the conclusion of the Morning War." Shepherd continued pronouncing doom on Tali's people, "At the present rate in the next 300 years the population will decrease to the point where the gene pool itself will become dangerously constricted and homogeneous. Further exacerbating the growth rate with stillbirths, and birth defects brought on by inbreeding as an already sub optimal genome is denied the diversity it needs to thrive. If there are more than 10 thousand Quarians left in the galaxy in a millennia it will be a true miracle.

"The Citadel Council knows this." Shepherd concluded, "And they will do nothing. Just as they do nothing to save the Krogan from an equally slow but no less inevitable extinction. With them on your side you could…. Well, that's a thought for another day."

"What is?" Tali said, looking up at Shepherd, realizing that at some point during that diatribe she had fallen to her knees.

"Nothing important for right now." Shepherd said, taking Tali's hand to pull her up.

"This is my people's future you were talking about." Tali demanded. "I think it's really damn important!"

"They're not going to all die in the next day or two." Shepherd said, the unshakable confidence in his voice seeming to say that everything was still well in hand. "We have to deal with the Galaxy's problem one at a time. Can't let ourselves get to easily overwhelmed."

"Now!" Shepherd called out to the some hundred or so people who were now gathered in the armory fully armed, armored and bearing grim faces of determination. "I think we've given the man up stair enough time to stew in his own juices. What do you say lads? Shall we go take a tour of the bridge?"

The assembled men screamed a wild and worldless war cry. They shook their weapons above their heads and stamped their feet on the floor. All the while the dozen different team leaders stood silent awaiting orders. Amongst those men were the six soldiers who had been guarding the hold and one heavily tattooed girl.

"We're right behind big guy!" Jack called to Shepherd when the crying died down.

"How are things on the home front Jack?" Shepherd asked as he strapped another two shot guns to his back and took up his claymore and impromptu boarding shield.

"Locked down nice and safe." Jack explained, "According to the geek squad the pirates have pulled back to their quarters and are digging in for a seige. It's almost like they're scared of us or something."

"Typical bullies." One of the soldiers offered.

"They're not so tough when people might shoot back." Another marine declared.

"Even the most cowardly animals are dangerous when backed into a corner." The injured marine pointed out. "Digging them out of their quarters is going to be real fun."

"Let's them rot there if they want." Shepherd dismissed. "All we really need is the bridge. Still no reason to give them a free shot at our back."

"Jenkins! Kowalski!" Shepherd called to two men, "Take your teams and hold the entrances to the stairwells. The rest of us will put an end to this. Come on everyone, this fight is almost over now."

* * *

The assault had resumed. And it was quiet. The security cameras were off line, or had had their feeds rerouted to new network servers his men had no access to, and so the bridge crew waited in tense silence. Occasionally they heard the staccato roar of machine gun fire harmonizing with the screams of the dying and punctuated by the barks of shotguns. Some of the crew had apparently ignored the captain's orders and were trying to slow the giant down. Or the monster was cleaning out the side corridors and chambers as he advanced, purging the ship of it's crew.

Every time the silence returned one of the crew men offered up a prayer for the souls of the dead. The captain endured it all with grim sobriety. Sol'daron whistled a jaunty tune to himself occasionally as he held the ship's course. Harkon polished his gun or sharpened a knife by his side. The end was coming. They all knew. But they had made their peace, so they checked their weapons and held their ground.

The first sign of their guest's arrival was a light tapping on the sealed bulkhead to the bridge. Every eye turned their gaze towards the last barrier separating them all from death. The captain stood, extended his gun and leveled it's barrel at the door. Soon all the crew followed his example. The silence held for a moment.

"Men, what-" Jar'kannath started to say, but was interrupted by the first blow to the door.

With a great resounding crash, the bulkhead shook under the hit. With the second it's metal warped inward. With the third, it opened a gap between itself and the wall as its great hinges were bent from their holdings. With the fourth it was torn free and sent crashing into the room, flying past Harkon and embedding itself in the wrecked tight beam transmitter. It it's place only a single over sized fist remained.

The monster stepped onto the bridge. The command to open fire was left frozen in Jar'kannath's mouth. He knew the creature was massive from the security cameras but no reproduced recording could do justice to the thing standing before him. It didn't just tower over them, it loomed. The peak of a vengeful mountain it's black shadow smothering the room as it beat down on their wills with all the righteous fury it could muster against those arrogant and foolish enough to stand in it's way. The Giant set his boarding shield to the side and addressed the captain.

"Sorry about the mess and everything." The giant said, it's voice low and ominous. "Everything will be taken care of shortly. My name is Shepherd, and I am here to help you captain."

The captain stared at the giant speechless for a moment. Eventually his mind succeeded in it's hard reset. He was still alive. This was completely unexpected, but on the whole good. But the universe was stubbornly refusing to make any sense to him at all. Fortunately it seemed like this state was not unique to himself.

"Uh, are we going to help him to his grave?" One of the rebel slaves behind the giant asked in stunned confusion.

"No, why would you think that?" The giant asked his soldiers.

"Well we have been killing his men to get here." Another slave offered.

"An unfortunate necessity." Shepherd insisted. "We are pressed for time and tens of thousands of lives hang in the balance."

"I'm sorry." Jar'kannath finally spoke out, "By the pillars of damnation, what are you talking about? Who are you? Who are trying to save? The slaves?"

"I told you," Shepherd explained, "My name is Shepherd and I am trying to save your life and lives of everyone in this fleet, pirates and civilians."

"From who? From what?" The captain pressed.

"From the Hegemon of course." Shepherd declared as if it were totally obvious. "Come then, there is no need to make me kill you, put down your weapons and let us reason together and you will see clearly that you and your men have been betrayed and are being sent to your deaths."

"Captain," Sol'daron called to him, "I have a clear shot at Durrin's ship. Shall I set a collision course?"

The captain locked eyes with Shepherd. Or at least he tried to. Shepherd wasn't staring at any of his eyes in particular, but more at the center of his face. Most two eyes made that mistake. They were so used to looking people square in the face that they didn't know how to deal with Batarians, so they looked at only two eyes, while Shepherd was keeping at least half an eye on each of his. The captain wasn't sure why, but that made him feel slightly at ease. The arrogance of it really was impressive.

This giant two eyes was so certain of himself he thought he could over power Jar'kannath's gaze with half as many eyes. Everything about the man was arrogant. But not the overbearing arrogance of those old fools who tried to beat others down to protect their ego's. This was an easy going arrogance born from the simple knowledge that the man in question had never failed at anything and couldn't conceive of failing at anything else. The kind of arrogance that one day, with no prompting, would declare to a whole bar room it's intention to climb a mountain, or hunt some dangerous predator, or catch the biggest fish in the lake. And then would actually go do it. Not to one up anyone, just because the man could. Jar'kannath couldn't help but think that this giant might be fun if he could get him drunk.

"Hold course old man," The captain called back, "Everyone put your guns down. Let's hear what this man has to say."

The bridge crew followed orders. And after a nod from Shepherd, the humans follow suit and waited. The captain took a seat in his main command chair, Shepherd leaned back against a wall. Both men seemingly purly at ease. Jar'kannath however was anything but. He felt wound up like spring. He should be dead. He had been prepared to die, and now here he was talking politics. It was surreal, jarring almost.

"If you will permit me to assume the perspective of the Hegemon." Shepherd began and then continued at a nod from the captain. "The Batarian Hegemony has enjoyed the prestige of being the fourth greatest race in the galaxy for some time."

A few of the crew grumbled at that, but most nodded in agreement. The Hegemony's economy was about on par with the Salarian Union's thanks to their powerful industry, held back by their lagging service sector. They weren't as prosperous as the Asari Republics or the Volus clans but they were far more successful than the Hierarchy. Likewise their army was larger than Union or Republics, though the Asari navy would give them a real run for the money. The Destiny Ascension was a real monster of a ship. But they had no hope of going eye to eye with the Hierarchy and would be fools to underestimate the Volus bombing fleet. So fourth strongest was probably fair.

"But now mankind has joined the scene and did so by spitting in the Hierarchy's eyes and came out alive." Shepherd continued. "Humanity's grand ambition of gaining a council seat is well known, and by exposing weakness in the Council's power by defying them at Shanxi, may well have opened the way to such a goal, not just for themselves but others as well. I would say that if a fourth seat was given away the most likely recipients would be either Humanity, as a military asset, the Volus, as an economic asset, or the Batarian's for your connections to the Terminus systems and most of the galaxy's underground. One could easily say that these three races are in direct competition for this prestigious position.

"The Hegemon himself most likely sees things this way. Like any man in power, his goal first and foremost is to increase his power and the influence of his people. But direct confrontation with either of the other races is undesirable for Hegemony. The Volus economy is to strong to be easily damaged, and tied to the galactic monetary system as it is, any damage inflicted on it would reflect three fold back on the Hegemony. Any attack on the Volus directly could only earn the wrath of the Hierarchy which would be suicide. Humanity is more vulnerable than the Volus, but far less predictable. A species that seriously considered going to war with the whole Citadel Council is not a species to needlessly provoke. Ideally the Hegemon would've exploited the tension between the Council and Alliance over the Relay 314 Incident, and used that to gain economic support and better position itself to compete with the Alliance. But then the Alliance started settling in the Verge and all those plans went out the window."

"Humanity's expansion in the Verge was illegal." Jar'kannath insisted trying to see if he could get a rise out of Shepherd. "Those worlds had long been marked out for Batarian colonization."

"Irrelevant." Shepherd dismissed.

"The Council should've stopped them, this whole conflict is humanity's fault." The captain pressed.

"In a purely legal world yes." Shepherd conceded without argument. "But in the real world the Council would never have risked resuming the war with humanity. Not for a species that practices slavery. If a law will not, or can not be enforced, than that law does not exist."

"The Council has always hated us for our culture." Jar'kannath complained, "Who are they to judge us so? Who are you to call our old tradition immoral?"

"I am no god." The giant denied, "I make no claim to moral judgement. But I can measure efficacy. The practice of slavery has always been a thorn in the side of the Hegemony. It creates needless hostility between your people and the galaxy at large while offering no real benefit in turn. Most slaves are just used to gather raw materials in fields and mines, or as personal servants. Most of the Hegemony's wealth is produced by the workers of the artizen and urban castes, who work far harder and more efficiently motivated as they are by a fair wage and the prospect of improving their lives. Slaves will never work as well as free men."

"The slave system underpins our whole culture." the captain insisted, "Without it our people would be left to anarchy and division."

"True," Shepherd again conceded, "Without slavery the whole caste system would fall apart. But the caste system itself is the only thing even more disastrous for the Batarian people than the practice of slavery. So that's a bit like saying that tying your arm to your side makes it easier to hold a stab wound close by pressing a knife into it."

"How can you stand there and condemn our oldest and most sacred traditions like this?" The captain accused, "Are you so racist?"

"Your traditions are not sacred." Shepherd countered, "They were not given to you by god, they are not written into your genes. They were an innovation adopted at the dawn of the Hegemony to deal with a specific set of problems your society faced. Now your society faces new challenges and holding to the past is just holding you back. Tradition must always be challenged lest it grow stagnant and self destructive."

"You think you know better than all our people? How arrogant can you be?"

"You thought you knew better than all of your people. Last I checked there is no pirate caste, so why are you out here Captain?"

The captain could not answer that. Partially he was just impressed. Any one of those past statements was enough to make most human erupt in righteous fury. But this giant held to his purpose and responded to each charge against himself and his people with calm logic. If it wasn't for the fact that this discussion was likely to end with his death he would be quite enjoying all this. Mostly though he couldn't bring himself to meet the giant's eyes. He was casteless. He was the thing he had always been raised to feel superior to. The one thing in Batarian society lower than slaves, he had turned his back on his whole past and family just to pursue his own ambitions.

"You are out here," The giant supplied in the stretching silence, "Because to continue on as you were born to would've been a waste. Because that is all a caste system can ever do, waste talent. Every courageous warrior born a farmer, every genius dying in a trench somewhere, every artist toiling away in a factory, every technician chanting endlessly in some temple to confused by people to give them real advice, all of them are a thousand cuts across the Hegemony. Talent wasted in untold numbers. And that is to say nothing of all the inbred, incompetent, corrupt, and useless idiots who find themselves in positions of power and command for no other reasons than the circumstances of their birth.

"The Hegemon has done his best to carve some degree of power and influence out of the situation. Allowing the best and brightest of his people to bleed out into the terminus systems and verge as pirates, smugglers and enforcers. Assets he can call on as terrorists and raiders to bring military power against his enemies without directly defying the Citadel Accords. But in the process he has allowed the Hegemony itself to grow weak and anemic."

"The system works though." Jar'kannath interjected. "You admit the Hegemony is the fourth greatest race in the galaxy."

"Only because the Citadel Council is so determined to keep the galaxy quiet," Shepherd pressed, "That they refuse to bring pressure directly to the Hegemony itself. Any amount of force could bring the Hegemony to its knees. You say Humanity started this by expanding into the Verge? But why did humanity challenge the Hegemony so brazenly? It's because the Alliance knew the Hegemony could not directly oppose them. Mankind could call the Hegemon's bluff and he had no choice but to back down."

"And that justifies the Alliance's aggression?"

"That weakness does far worse than justify. Justifications are just excuses, and you can alway find one when you need it. The Hegemony enabled humanity to exploit them, their weakness was an invitation."

"You call us weak. But we have the Alliance on the back foot. Look at Elysium, and that's just the beginning."

"No." Shepherd interrupted, "Elysium will be the end of it. You pirates can challenge Alliance patrols, but you hold all the military talent the Hegemony has produced. The rest of its fleet is in no position to go eye to eye with the Alliance Fleet. Maybe if the Hegemon put you all in charge of the navy, but if you think the old men entrenched in fleet command will bend knee to you you've got another thing coming.

"Since the beginning the Hegemon had no hope of holding the Verge. If the Hegemony pushed mankind to the point that all out war breaks between the two races than the Hegemony is doomed."

"The Council would never allow-" Jar'kannath tried to argue.

"You think the Hierarchy will lift one talon to save the Hegemony?" Shepherd again brushed his arguments aside. "They may dislike humanity but they hate all of you pirates. And after a tragedy like Elysium the Union and Republics would openly revolt against the Council if it declared its intention to defend the Hegemony and slavery. A raid like Elysium is the absolute limit of what the Hegemon can dare to do against the Alliance. Anything more gives the Alliance the 'Just Cause' it needs to press an assault into the Hegemony itself.

"The Hegemon has already accomplished his goal anyway." Shepherd further explained. "The pirate raids have made it clear to the Alliance that it can't just steal territory from the Hegemony without consequences and has let the galaxy at large that the Hegemony has not bowed out of the running for that Council seat. Anything further just risks direct invasion. Of course the rage provoked by the raid of Elysium has to be spent on something. Some sacrificial lamb must be offered up to the Alliance to let them feel like they've won without having to burn Khar'shan to the ground.

"That lamb obviously," Shepherd declared ominously, "Is you all of course."

"You think the Hegemon is going to leave us to be slaughtered by the Alliance?" Jar'kannath said incredulously. "We are his main way of effecting political change according to you, why would he throw us away?"

"No the Hegemon isn't going to abandon you." Shepherd said as if nothing could be more obvious. "He is going to betray you. Lure you into a trap, and probably even help the Alliance hunt down any of you that get away. The power he's displayed in tweaking the Alliance's nose is more than enough to keep any other galactic power off his back while he rebuilds. He doesn't need you. And giving you any kind of shelter is just asking for the Alliance to come into the Hegemony looking for you. It's just good business sense to cut you off at this point. Nice and logical really."

"Logic is one thing." Jar'kannath dismissed, "Proof would be another. Do you have any that this whole mad idea of yours has any truth to it?"

"Just one word," Shepherd said with smug satisfaction, "Torfan."

"How do you know about Torfan?" Jar'kannath asked after a long pause.

"I was raised on a military base," Shepherd explained, "You hear a lot of things there. It would be a dangerous presumption to assume the Alliance didn't know about Torfan."

"Well congratulations to Alliance intelligence," Jar'kannath admitted sounding nervous. "But that doesn't prove the Hegemon betrayed us."

"True," Shepherd admitted, "But if I wanted to ensure your demise as the Hegemon, then it would also be a dangerous presumption to assume the Alliance knew about Torfan and would think you all would go there after the attack. The best way to ensure that happened would be to sabotage a ship or two and make sure they got left behind with a partially destroyed computer full of oh so convenient navigation data. So tell me, how many frigates made it off of Elysium?"

"Three ships were left behind," The captain admitted. "Engine trouble by last report, and Alliance marines were closing in."

"Were any of those ships transporting Special Intervention Units?" Shepherd asked simply enough, when the captain didn't respond Shepherd pressed on. "And I further guess that those SIU troops somehow managed to miraculously make it back to another landing zone just in time to escape?"

The captain's eyes widened as he considered the possibilities. Since the captain regularly dealt with people who considered murder to be a solution to any problem, he had honed his instinct to be on the lookout for anything the least bit suspicious. He had known those frigates must've been wiped out by official orders the moment he had heard about their engine troubles. But that wasn't necessarily unusual. All pirates and smugglers had to deal with officials from the priest, noble and scribe castes who more easily offended and twice as vengeful as any terminus warlord. It wasn't unthinkable that the fools had pissed someone high ranking off who had pulled the strings to get a little wet work done.

Now that he thought about it though the whole setup had been strange. The frigates had landed to raid Alliance military bases to hold off any counter attack while others raided nearby towns for slaves. But the whole region was only lightly populated and several captain's had suggested that the ships would have more profitable times elsewhere. The generals who helped them plan the raid, well really they had just stood in the corner and shouted orders at them while the pirates planned the raid, had insisted the attacks be carried out to show the humans not to underestimate Batarian military power. Could the whole thing had been a set up? It wasn't unthinkable, and the cold murderous logic of it was what Jar'kannath expected from the high castes who spent lives like coins.

"It could be a coincidence though," Shepherd admitted in a voice condescending enough to let them all know what he thought of such a possibility. "The real proof will come when you reach Torfan. First you will find the governor there has been replaced by a personal friend of the Hegemon. Then he will demand that you unload your cargo quickly and come to his home for a celebratory feast, and he won't even think of discussing payment until you meet with him in person. There he will tell you of his new genius plan to host a slave auction. How sure he is if he can bring the movers and shakers of Batarian society together he can make a ludicrous amount of money in the process. He will claim he can pay you three or four times what the slaves are worth if you stick around and wait for the big event.

"If you insist on being paid normally he will claim to have already spent his money on preparing the auction so he can only pay you a quarter of what they're all worth. If you try to walk away he will refuse to give you your cargo back and might just have you imprisoned outright. There will be a small private auction in a few days to sell your best stock to the Hegemon and his allies first, which will no doubt make good in his promises for great rewards and convince you all to wait for the real event in a week or two. Once the governor knows the Alliance fleet is on the move he will leave Torfan on urgent business, just as the first guests, all of them enemies of the Hegemon, arrive. Shortly thereafter the Alliance fleet will arrive and then it will all be over."

The captain sank back into his chair a defeated man. He already knew this plan. It had been worked out in advance by Torfan's new governor: Coulladin, a worm of a man whose silver tongue had convinced all of them they would all soon be filthy rich. They had all already agreed. They had sat there smiling to each other drunk on promises of unthinkable wealth while that little runt of a man had planned how to slit their throats. There was no way out. He had spent to much, on the cages, the weapons, the extra men, on the Blood Pack. If he ran his crew would kill him when he couldn't pay them what he promised. If he stayed the alliance would kill him. Even if he somehow survived the Alliance would never let him go, not a pirate who attacked Elysium and the Hegemony would sell him out at a drop of a hat. He would have to make a run for the Terminus systems, and no warlord there would risk bringing all of humanity down on their heads just to keep one Captain under their thumbs. He was a dead man walking. The giant could go back to his cage right now and just wait for it all to happen.

But the giant- no Shepherd had come for him. He had said he had come to save him. Maybe….. Dared he so hope?

"What do you want Shepherd?" Jar'kannath asked at last, his voice drained but still weary.

"From you?" Shepherd considered, "Weapons and armor mostly, though we already have all that so that's not really a demand. What would really help would be for you to transport us all down to Torfan, while we are armed, disguised as slaves, the authorities none the wiser."

"You're going to do this all again down there?" The captain surmised, "Free all the Elysians, all the other slaves too, and take over the whole station?"

"That's the plan." Shepherd said with that eternal unshakable confidence, "If you could put me in contact with the rest of the pirate captains as well once we get down there. I'll need their ships later. They need to know what's coming for them to."

"I can get you in contact with them now." Jar'kannath offered, "Might save you some hassle."

"And explain to them that this ship has been overrun by rampaging slaves? They'd shoot us out of the sky in a heartbeat." Shepherd dismissed, "I prefer to negotiate with men who can't blast me with ship cannons if they don't like what I say. On Torfan I'll have a few mile of stone between me and their temper tantrums."

The captain nodded, it made sense to him. "And then what? After you take Torfan I mean. Will we just cart all you back to Alliance territory and ask for forgiveness?"

"That would be a good way to get you all killed." Shepherd explained, "We will arrange for most of the Elysians and others to return to the Alliance. The kids, parents, elderly, and anyone else that needs to return to their family. But I will take as many of them as I can convince to join me and you pirates in a much greater mission."

"Which is?"

"To eliminate the practice of slavery and free the Batarian people from the tyranny of the caste system, by overthrowing the Hegemony." Shepherd declared, leaving his human compatriots stunned, the Batarians realing, and the captain laughing hysterically to himself. Outside the bridge Jack smiled to herself knowing they had made their first real step. And old Sul'darron raised a prayer of thanks to the old gods that he had lived so long, to see such strange things.

* * *

"What do you mean we're not going back yet?" A panicking voice cried from the back of the crowd of humans who had gathered to hear Shepherd's report about his meeting with the captain.

"Don't we control the ship now?" Another demanded

"Was all this for nothing?" Another wailed

"What's going to happen now?" One voice called that sounded somewhat hopeful. That took Tali Zorah off guard. After witnessing that totally bizarre, and weirdly friendly conversation between a slaver captain and the man who not five minutes before had been slaughtering his men, Tali had been certain the whole thing would fall apart when Shepherd tried to explain things to the rest of the escaped civilians. But at least half the face here weren't looking accusingly at Shepherd but expectantly, hopefully even. Could these people really be swayed so easily? Were they already so convinced that Shepherd had everything under control?

Shepherd waved down the myriad of questions from the front of the crowd. He towered over everyone, so it was all to easy for him to meet everyone's gaze. He smiled warmly at everyone and stood solid as a rock before them all. As the silence held, Tali could see more and more faces around her turn hopeful. Without even saying anything he was already bringing them around to his side just by standing there so firm and unmovable.

"This is nothing to be surprised over." He started down playing their panic and inviting them all to join his easy confidence. "If we just took the ship and ran the rest of the pirate fleet would shoot us down after a moment or two of hesitation as they figured out what was going on. We're not part of their paycheck, and they have nothing to lose from killing a rival pirate group."

That was true at least. Tali had known that from the beginning. Though it begged a question that someone soon called out.

"So what was the point of all this? What are we doing here?"

"No war is won with just one battle." Shepherd explained like a patient teacher, "No journey takes only a single step. But each step we take brings us all closer to our goal and makes the next fight easier. Now we have weapons, we have armor, we are organized and we are strong. Once we get down to the pirate base we just have to do this all over again, only this time with thousands of other people ready to help us. I've talked the captain around to our side, so the pirate authorities won't know what's coming at them. With the element of surprise and everything we've all learned from this fight, taking that base will be easy. Torfan is mostly underground, so once we control the spaceport and the access points we can either bunker down to wait for the Alliance to come get us, or convince the rest of the pirates to get us out of there."

"There's no need to panic and run." Shepherd continued pressing the point home. "And even if we could just escape from here, there's still the other people trapped in those pirate ships to think about. I know none of you would think of leaving them behind."

And that point cinched it. Truth be told everyone here wanted to just run away immediately and never look back. But no one here was going to say that to Shepherd. It would be like admitting to their parents that they enjoyed hitting small animals. And if no one would say it to Shepherd, then no one would say it to each other either. Not and risk being outed as the one coward in a group being so courageous and heroic.

"I know this whole business has been long and tiring." Shepherd continued, the sympathy in his voice felt truly genuine. "But we've now turned an impossible task into a fight that we can win! The road only stretches on a bit further. If we all come together and press on. We can pull through this. We can save everyone."

"Okay everyone!" Jack called out catching the group's attention. "That's enough of a pep talk for now. The pirate ship will reach Torfan in just twelve hours and we have a lot of work to do. We've got the guns and armor, but the plan gets a lot more complicated if the Batarians know we've got them. So we need rags, blankets, ponchos, ratty old towels. Anything we can get over people that looks baggy and pathetic. Make it seem like the Batarians stole everything we have and left us in rags. It will make it much easier to hide the hard ware people. We've got a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it. So hop to it."

Just like that the crowd was dispersed and set to work. Tali lingered near to Shepherd along with the soldiers and team leaders. They were the only ones who knew of Shepherd's larger goal, and so far none of them had mentioned it to anyone else. They held silent for a time and Shepherd waited on them, they had something to say but he wasn't going to drag it out of them.

"Uh boss?" Jenkins finally spoke up, "Was all that you said about the Alliance knowing about this Torfan place true?"

"Probably." Shepherd answered.

"Probably?" Jenkins asked a little stunned, "But you said you were at a military base so you must've heard about it right?"

"The Alliance knows there is a pirate base there, but not much else." Shepherd explained, "The first I knew that the pirates were taking us there was when the one Batarian mentioned the name to one of the Krogan. But the Alliance does probably know by now at least, or will very soon. It makes the most sense for the Hegemon to betray the pirates like I said. But even if he isn't, the Citadel Council will do everything it can to stop a war from breaking out between the System Alliance and the Hegemony. So as soon as any Spectres or STG agents know where the pirates went they will forward that information to the Alliance in the hope that mankind's vengeance will be satisfied with the pirates."

"If that's so," Jenkins pressed, "Wouldn't it be safest to wait for rescue? I mean we were lucky fighting through this ship, and I imagine this Torfan place is pretty big, you can't be everywhere. People might get hurt or even killed."

"That's true." Shepherd admitted. "It would be safest to wait, but the problem is that the Hegemon won't wait for us. He knows what's coming, and he will want his share in the profits for this venture even as he sells the pirates out. If we wait to long, a lot of people might get sold off to him and his cronies, lost to us inside the Hegemony. Fighting is risky, but if it works than we save the most people possible."

The assembled men nodded at that. But Tali wasn't convinced. She suspected something deeper was going on. There was his real goal to consider and all that it meant.

"Boss," The injured marine asked next, "Could we really do it? Bring down the whole thing I mean."

"One thing at a time men." Shepherd dismissed. "First we save everyone, then we will deal with the Hegemony."

"But their just civilians boss, no offence Jenkins."

"Every soldier was a civilian until they decided not to be." Shepherd countered. "I don't lie, everyone who wants to go home will go home once this is over. I won't make anyone fight, and no one here owes the Hegemony anything except maybe a good kick to the groin. But I will go on. I will do what I have to, to set things right."

The men accepted that. His words were simple and honest and that was enough for them, so they moved on. The group quickly dispersing to help take command of the increasing chaos around them to get people working. As they left, Tali approached the giant. This moment terrified her in a way. But she would see it through.

"Do you want to ask me something Tali?" Shepherd said to her as she approached.

"When you told Carlson not to kill that pirate," She started, gathered her courage and pressed on, "Did you do it because it would help Carlson, or to avoid creating unnecessary hostility between the pirates and the Elysians?"

"I did it because it was the right thing to do." Shepherd answered.

"And what does that mean!?" Tali demanded, "That man killed his sister, doesn't he have the right to demand justice. You told him he would see the man hang, but you intend to use the pirates to reform the whole Hegemony! No doubt you will make them into its new military!"

"And doesn't that pirate's family deserve to have their father back?" Shepherd answered.

"You don't know he has a family!" Tali ridiculed,

"I do." Shepherd claimed, "I can smell it."

"What?" Tali asked confused.

"Batarian women mark their mates with a light pheromone scent to warn off other females from poaching their men. I can smell it. The smell gets stronger after each time a woman has given birth. I know how many children each and every Batarian I killed today has."

"Just like how I know that according to most statistics: at least forty percent of the Batarians on this ship are former slaves." Shepherd continued sounding weary and hard pressed, "Most of the rest from the peasant caste. Third and fourth sons who would get no inheritance and would have to work for half their lives to earn enough for their own farms or to pay a bride price. If they could even find the work they needed. More than five percent of all third born sons from the lower castes will die of starvation before they turn thirty. These men aren't evil, they are desperate, but in their desperation they do terrible things."

"Do you honestly think that anything they might have suffered could justify all of this?" Tali countered.

"I don't know." Shepherd explained, "Neither do you really, neither of us have every been so desperate we might think differently in their place."

"I would never stoop so low as this!" Tali insisted.

"How can you know?" Shepherd questioned, "Are you really a good person Tali Zorah or have you just never had a chance to be a bad person?"

"I-" She started, and then stopped as she remembered a man shot in the back and wondered if he had children who would never see their father again.

"Moral absolutes are such troubling things." Shepherd mused in the silence, "You can never say that one is more absolute than the others. I can't measure the weight of men's lives. But I can see how much they suffer. Carlson would never have forgiven himself if he had killed that man in cold blood. Every memory he has of his sister would be forever tainted by a bloody corpse on the floor. I stopped that. I helped him. If I also helped myself and others so much the better. I did the right thing, my reasons don't make it any less right."

"But your reasons drive what you do." Tali accused. "You are taking these people down to Torfan to make them fight. You could convince the other captains to turn back now. You could call for the Alliance, tell them where the pirates are going and get them to come now. You could turn that whole base into a mad house of terror while we defended the Elysians and waited for rescue. But instead you are going to make them fight and risk their lives, all so that you can make them into an army and lead them in some crusade against the Hegemony!"

"Yes I will." Shepherd accepted, "It is the right thing to do."

"You will spend their lives for the sake of your own selfish morality!" Tali condemned,

"I will let them arise to a greater challenge," Shepherd insisted, "And lead them to accomplish great things."

"You will manipulate them like children!"

"They are not children." Shepherd denied, "I will argue and inspire them. But I won't force anyone to follow me. All I will do is help them see what it is that they want to ignore. I will help them see the needless suffering that Batarian slaves, peasants, beggars and casteless outcasts suffer everyday. I will make them see how the galaxy is driving the Krogan and your people to extinction. I will make them see how the terminus has been left to rot and fester because the Council can't be bothered to deal with its people own ambitions. I will show them what I have seen every day of my life, how the broken and forgotten of the galaxy cry out for help and salvation."

"Why? Do you think the galaxy will sing your praises for this? Do you think they will welcome you as some great savior?"

"I will do it because I am the only one who can. I am myself, there are no others. There will never be anyone else like me, who can do what I can do, who will live as long as I can live, who can see all that I can see. So if I don't, no one will."

"I am not asking you to come with me Tali." Shepherd concluded. "This is not your fight, these aren't your people. But you are the best hacker we have here, and if you help us you can save so many lives. The galaxy has turned its back on your people, you have every right to do the same. But if you do, then nothing will ever change."

Then he left her there. For a long while she just stood and thought to herself. She thought for a time, that she should just return to her pilgrimage and be done with the whole thing. The pirates would not notice one departing shuttle. But then she considered something.

The purpose of the pilgrimage was to make a true contribution to the fleet. The Migrant fleet could not afford to take on anyone who wouldn't give more to the fleet then they took from it. At the end of it all, all that really mattered was the fleet itself. Not the prestige, appreciation, or even acceptance that might be earned from such a contribution. What mattered was for everyone to do everything they could to help the fleet.

She was not certain how much she like Shepherd. He seemed truly dangerous to her. A man of near limitless power and influence unshakable in his convictions. Truly such a man could inflict limitless damage upon the world. But right now, she had to admit, he was helping his fleet. Not the migrant fleet of course, but his people. Not humanity, but everyone he believed needed help. That was his fleet. Could she condemn a man who used others to help the migrant fleet? No, infact she would commend such a man.

"I still think this might be a bad idea." She said to herself at last. "But I guess I should make sure he doesn't get too many people killed in the damn fool idea of his."

* * *

AN: Well that turned out a bit longer than expected, and that's even with one scene I had planned pushed back to next chapter.

So yeah, first real good look at Primarch Shepherd. In the games I always played Shepherd as a kind of Mother Bear. I was always polite, friendly and encouraging to my crew members. Always there to back them up, though I also tried to challenge their beliefs to make them better people. Outside of the crew though, I liked Hacket for being too old for all this nonsense, Aria for just being bad ass in general, Anderson as an honorary crew member, and everyone else in the galaxy could go shove their heads up the south side of a north bound donkey. I never passed up an opportunity to mouth off to the council or insult the illusive man. Never passed up a renegade chance, and my plans in general gravitated towards shooting everyone and leaving God to recognize his own. But that was human Shepherd, this is Primarch Shepherd and Primarchs are very different beasts all together. They're not really human as they are human shaped sledge hammers the Emperor could use to collectively beat the galaxy back into some semblance of order.

It's kind of surprising to see how the character turned out so far. I hadn't really planned on him being so manipulative but it just seemed to make sense in the context. It will be fun to see how this all plays out in coming chapters.

Do forgive poor Tali if you can, she's still terribly naive at this point and struggling to keep her head above the water and not get pulled into Shepherd's rapidly growing cult of personality.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Trouble in Torfan

Part 1: Arrival

System 284, as it was registered with the Citadel, or the Karaht as the Batarians named it when first discovered, was a dead system. A white dwarf star orbited by three gas giant's boasting seven moons between them. Nothing in the star's goldilocks zone, none of the moons had any real atmosphere or even the electromagnetic field needed to shield the planetoids from the star's radiation. The gas giants had plenty of heavy metals and H3 to make mining operations there profitable but the expense of maintaining the facilities in such a inhospitable system was preventative. The only thing of real value in the system was relay 284.

That should have been enough for something though. That relay was a secondary relay with in striking distance of both the Verge and the Terminus systems. Such back doors linking regions of habitable space without a primary relay were rare and highly valuable, and should've been enough to make the system into a major trading hub similar to the infamous omega system. But that would've threatened the trade passing through one of the Batarian's primary relays that made a similar connection.

So instead they built a pirate base here. Trying to run merchant ships through such a system was virtually suicidal, and the pirates in the system could freely strike out into Terminus space or make runs through the sparsely inhabited verge to reach Alliance or Hegemony held worlds. Such a world should've been cleaned out decades ago to make way for greater progress, but so far no one was willing to foot the butcher's bill to bring such stability and peace.

Torfan itself was a moon orbiting a gas giant about three AUs from the mass relay, and two from the star. It was close enough to the relay to strike out at any ships that came through before they could escape to another system, but not so close that an enemy fleet could strike the base before it could react. It had almost no atmosphere to speak of, and only about a third of a g of gravity. The only thing of note on the moon was the pirate base that dominated the system.

This base had been built into the base of a ten kilometer wide, one and a half kilometer deep crater created by some ancient asteroid impact. In a considerable feat of engineering the batarians had placed a seven kilometer long dome over the top of the bottom six hundred or so meters of the crater and then buried said dome under another eight hundred meters of stone, that was then crushed and mixed into concrete reinforced with steel columns and other support structures. That dome alone could stand up to week's worth of orbital or even nuclear bombardment, especially with its protective kinetic barriers.

Beneath the dome, the base had not so much been designed as jury rigged together over the course of the more than the century it had been operational. The original structure was divided into ten floors and five quadrants. Over time each floor was further split apart into various living quarters, storage warehouses, bars, brothels, meeting areas, secret chambers, and many areas were simply filled in with concrete to create sound proof and radio resistant interrogation chambers and "inspection" rooms. Numerous corridors and hallways were cut through various rooms and from one floor to another to suit people's needs. Some floors had been inserted in between already existing floors, others had been removed in places to create truly cavernous areas. The whole place had ended up as a nightmarishly convoluted labyrinth of a facility.

Furthermore, two underground caverns had been discovered during its construction and used to further expand the base. The first of these caverns was underneath the man base and was predominantly used to house a nuclear fusion plant that provided the rest of the base with near limitless energy. It also gave the governor a convenient self destruct device with which to threaten his enemies with radioactive death if they should so defy him. The second cavern branched off to the west of the main base. It had been expanded considerably over the years to create a large number of isolated chambers and living quarters for when Torfan was visited by several groups that hated one another and never wanted to interact with each other.

The main base was connected to three star ports by a large underground road way, which snake and spiriled its way around the main base connecting to it at various different floors on all sides of the main base. This roadway was some fifteen meters tall and had a forty meter wide square base that was kept smooth and free of obstacles or debris. The roadway led directly to the main above ground star port about three kilometers away from the main base, at which frigates and even some light cruisers could land upon, thanks the moon's light gravity, to be easily unloaded. Most of that starport was housed underground and had been carefully designed to be easily defended against attackers. The other two starports were both about a kilometer away from the main starport and connected to the main roadway with their own pair of underground roads, each ten meters tall and fifteen meters wide. The secondary starports were both built underground and were meant to allow smaller shuttle craft to easily land and unload in an oxygenated area while ferrying cargo to and from larger ships in orbit around the moon.

The main base housed a sizable fleet of ground cars and repulsor driven trucks meant to transport cargo up and down this vital connection between the starports and base. The governors had always boasted of a plan to replace the road with a high speed railway, but here to such plans had never been carried out. Once cargo had been brought to the main base it was brought in through one of a dozen different entrance ways and usually stored in one of the large main warehouses. Most cargo would only remain there for a short time, before it was either shipped out to be sold, or moved to another area of the base to be better protected.

Although Torfan was predominantly a defensive base meant to house pirates in between raids, it also served as a marketplace and neutral meeting ground. Here pirates came to sell their goods to the governor and the various merchants who had purchased permanent warehouses in the base. And while they relaxed for a time, getting intoxicated on drink, drugs, or whores; smugglers, warlords and government officials would come to that very same base to buy their ill gotten goods. While the two groups rarely ever interacted with each other, their leaders would occasionally have to deal with each other, in reasonable secrecy, and under the judgement and protection of the governor. Hence why so much of the main base had been compartmentalized over the years.

Yet all this meant that Torfan had a rather ridiculously high profile for a main part of the criminal underworld. More than once during the last hundred years, the Turian military had considered clearing the place out, but to do so would be no simple feat. In fact, Nihlus mused to himself as he looked over the assembled information the STG had put together about the base, which Saren had expanded on with his person experience of the place, taking such a installation was likely to be far more trouble than it could ever be worth.

First space above the world would have to be cleared to defending pirates. The simplest part of the operation to be sure, but by no means easy, as pirates were notorious for fighting like devils if cornered. The starports next had to be cleared of any anti-orbital defenses, then breached from the surface with either a large supply of breaching charges or direct orbital fire. Once inside, it would no doubt prove an uphill battle to clear the place out of its defenders. And all of this had to be done while minimizing damage to the starports themselves since they would be needed to bring in further troops and supplies.

The roadway down into the base was fortunately not designed to collapse if compromised, since that would mean forever sealing themselves underground. Instead a number of barricades, pillboxes and other hard point defences had been built into the road itself, ready to be raised up out of the ground, by hydraulic lifts, at a moment notice to hold off invaders. Each of these formed a mini-fortress that needed to be battered directly through with no hope of outflanking or circumventing such a defence, all the while advancing down a long straight tunnel devoid of cover or protection.

Once the main base was reached and breached, soldiers would find themselves having to fight through that great labyrinth of a facility. Every long corridor leading to a narrow bulkhead into a wide killing field of an open warehouse or tightly packed bar. Dozens of blind corners leading into open tunnels down which hardened defenders could poor endless fire and weaponry. For every meter gained, soldiers likely walked right passed hidden doorways to side passages or hidden compartments, from which ambushers could emerge to bottle up the attackers and force them into a meat grinder. Every passageway a man walked down was likely lined with murder holes, traps or explosives meant to collapse the whole hallway on their heads. Radio communication would only work over short distances amongst such heavily insulated walls, while the defenders could easily coordinate with each other along internal lines of communication.

In the end the pirates could slowly but surely be pushed back into their last quarters back behind the base. This would merely end the desperate fight through the labyrinth and leave the attackers with the straightforward, though no less difficult task, of battering down the last few hold outs, dug into their final mini-castles. Of course only then, would one truly begin to see how desperately a man could fight when he has nowhere left to run.

Personally, if tasked with bringing down such a base, Nihlus would never resort to a direct assault. The best strategy was to either try and starve the defenders out with a protracted siege, bury them all alive by destroying the main roadway, or sending a lone operative in to destabilize the fusion reactor and leave them all to rot from radiation poisoning. Of course none of those strategies were an option if he had to rescue a bunch of would be slaves and innocent civilians as well.

Of course Shepherd had already bypassed most of those defenses as he and all his fellow slaves would be escorted directly into the main base. All he had to do was seize a few passageways connecting the warehouses the slaves would be stored in to the main roadway. While the defenses on that roadway were considerable they were not regularly manned, since Tofan was so far away from the mass relay the defenders had plenty of time to prepare such defenses before being attacked. No pirate was going to hold to a post that isn't needed with rigid discipline, not when there are plenty of whores to be had back home anyway. If Shepherd could move quickly enough, he could seize the first few barricades and use them to block the pirates from chasing after the slaves long enough to escape.

Assuming the pirates in orbit would be willing to screw themselves out of the greatest paycheck they had ever dreamed of and give the slaves a free trip off the moon. Assuming Shepherd could even free all the slaves quickly enough to move so decisively. Assuming he could even arm the slaves to free themselves at all. Assuming he could even find the weapons to arm them in the first place.

Most pirate bases were built like their ships, with economy of space holding highest priority. On a pirate ship, it would make sense to centralize the cargo as much as possible to optimize the amount of it they could take on, so an armory would often be placed close to the slave holding cells. While this posed a security risk, if the pirates had to shoot at their own merchandise then things had already gone very, very wrong, and more compact storage meant more merchandise could be transported, which meant higher profits.

Torfan had the room to be inefficient though, the highest priority there was not to merely storing goods, but keeping the people who were buying and selling those goods from killing each other. One of the practical upshots of which was that weapons on Torfan were not stored in a single convenient armory that might be seized and abused, but were spread throughout the facility in hidden caches that were regularly moved and only known to the security personnel that might need to use them. Usually these caches were in mostly inside of the many, many hidden chambers and compartments scattered throughout Torfan and present on none of the numerous schematics and blueprints that had been used to build and modify the main base. Even Saren only had a vague idea of where a handful of such chambers might be, and there was no way to tell if any of them were being used for a weapon cache without breaking them open, which would no doubt, trigger a major security alert.

In short as far as Nihlus could see, Shepherd had to free his fellow slaves with weapons he couldn't find or get if he even found them, then fight his way past armed guards with untrained civilians. Then he had to simultaneously defend his rear guard in a fighting withdraw up the main roadway while also launching a heavy assault against fortified positions at the star ports and then convince the very people who had enslaved all these civilians in the first place, to instead ruin their own futures and rescue them all from certain death. As far as Nihlus was concerned the Hegemony wasn't in any real danger from this whole fiasco and their real mission here was to rescue Shepherd before he managed to kill himself.

It was not as if the idea itself was fundamentally flawed. Case White, the STG's plan to overthrow the Hegemony through targeted slave revolts, even had a plan for something similar to what Shepherd was doing. Operation Inoculation called for the use of slave revolts to force certain pirate captains to help out in the revolution against the Hegemony. Those pirates, cornered between the revolutionaries and the mob of angry slaves, could be forced to smuggle weapons and agitators into Hegemony space. This would in turn force the Hegemony to crack down on piracy and smuggling throughout their territories which would exacerbate their sluggish economy with restricted supplies and force more pirates to rebel against them. But Inoculation called for small scale targeted rebellions against specific captains, the STG plans specifically state that pulling off such an uprising on larger bases in general and Torfan in particular was virtually suicidal.

This was not shaping up to be an easy mission by any means, Nihlus concluded to himself as he reviewed all this information and more while the ship made its final approach vector to the last mass relay between themselves and Torfan. Saren held his thoughts to himself for the time as he made the last few calculations. Quickly they approached the relay, sent out their mass data and desired vector and soon enough they were launched away to the long dead star system.

The ship the two of them were using was a small, 'yacht' sized ship only about thirty meters in length. It was amongst the smallest sized ships that could still be used for interstellar travel and was modeled after a popular civilian brand. While the ship was armed, it didn't have much in the way of heavy firepower and was predominantly designed as a stealth ship. It's small profile, combined with an ingenious system of heat sinks made it virtually undetectable to most long range sensor systems. A larger frigate sized version of such a ship was presently still being designed by a joint Alliance Hierarchy project, but smaller ships had an easier time incorporating such tech.

"Jump complete." Saren announced shortly after the trip was initiated, the ship having traveled almost four hundred light years in just the blink of an eye, "Drift is three AUs as intended. All stealth and navigation systems are operational, setting course for Torfan."

Technically it was possible to bring a ship in anywhere even remotely near a mass relay, but almost all ships focused on reducing drift and coming as close to a relay as possible. This minimized the chances of winding up too close to a planet's or star's gravity well and getting pulled to their doom if not just crashing into an asteroid field or comet. It also allowed larger groups of ships to move in relative formation which maintained organization and effectiveness. But since there was a good chance that a sizeable pirate fleet would be close to the mass relay at this time, the two Spectres had increased their drift to give themselves a less predictable path into the star system.

"Passive sensors are picking up a lot of com chatter," Nihlus noted studying the receptor readings. Actively sending out radio waves of their own would've given away their position but by measuring the radiation naturally traveling through the system their ship could get a general idea of what was happening around them.

"Looks like the fleet just arrived." Nihlus continued, "A lot of ships are making their way from the relay to Torfan, we should get there before them though."

"Any sign of the Shadow's Glory?" Saren asked, looking for the ship the STG believed that Shepherd had boarded on Elysium.

"Hard to say." Nihlus explained, "The sensors aren't really precise enough to pick up a specific ship at this range. Not when they're all so tightly packed together. Closing in would be risky though."

"Agreed, but the ships will have to declare themselves to Torfan's governor to get unloaded." Saren pointed out. "So we should be able to find out if its here by accessing their systems once we've landed."

"I suppose even pirates can't escape the power of bureaucracy." Nihlus noted dryly, "What do you think is our best method for infiltration?"

"The main ports will be too busy for us to slip in unnoticed," Saren explained as he brought up a holo map of Torfan's surface and highlighted an area to the north of the main base. "But the governor has an emergency launch bay connected to the main base by a secret elevator shaft we can use."

"Security would no doubt alert the governor to its use." Nihlus objected half heartedly, he knew Saren had been to Torfan before while operating in the verge, so he had every confidence in his friend's ability to guide them through this mission.

"The launch bay is only staffed by drones," Saren stated derisively, "And the whole security system on the base is woefully outdated and full of holes. The governors have only ever held the reigns on the moon just tight enough to dissuade people from out right insurrection. Torfan is a valued meeting ground precisely because it is so easy to work around the base's administration. I have access to viruses in the main server system that are prepared to disrupt the security system when we need it."

Nihlus nodded in agreement. He expected nothing better from not just pirates but the disgraced nobles who supposedly ruled over them. He knew from his own past growing up with mercenaries that such men that lived out here did so almost solely because they personally hated the order and discipline forced on them by normal society. Such men were all parasites in Nihlus's mind, unable and unwilling to put in the work to build a better life for themselves within the system and so instead they fled from it.

"I've prepared our armor to match the Blue Sun's usual markings." Nihlus offered, "STG reports place a good sized band of them operating on the moon, so we can easily disguise ourselves as their members."

"Good thinking." Saren agreed, "Once we are down there we can confirm the presence of that pirate ship from Torfan's own sensor systems then check the slave quarters for Shepherd."

"How do you want to approach him?" Nihlus asked

"With any luck he has realized that he's in over his head." Saren said sarcastically, "And will accept our help. Ideally we will be able to convince him and the other humans to just wait for the Alliance to come rescue them. Then it will just be a matter of keeping the slaves from being shipped out before they arrive."

"And if Shepherd is determined to be a hero?" Nihlus pressed.

"Work with him then I guess," Saren said with an indifferent shrug. "Supposedly he's a genius, maybe the big lug has an idea or two how to pull this off."

"Work with him?" Nihlus questioned in disbelief, "Our orders were clear, we are here to prevent a slave revolt, not organize one."

"Our orders are to protect the Hegemony and Shepherd," Saren clarified. "Torfan itself is an acceptable casualty if we can contain any uprising here. Really the slaves themselves are only a secondary concern."

Nihlus gave Saren a death stare for a few moments. His fellow Spectre had the good sense to look abashed after Nihlus added in the low throaty subharmonic growel that in millennia past had been the one warning a Turian might receive before being murdered. Nihlus pressed no further after Saren looked away from him. He knew Saren tended to get over focussed on the greater good of the Citadel and the mission at hand and forget that serving the people of the galaxy usually meant keeping as many of the alive as possible.

"Either way," Saren continued as he tried to clear the air, "It's not like we need to demand that Shepherd attack immediately. Once we make sure the humans know that help is coming they should be willing to just hang on and wait. But we can't afford to fight Shepherd and the pirates at once. If he forces the issue, then the best strategy would be to take control of a section of the main base and hold it until reinforcements arrive."

Nihlus mulled the thought over for a few moments. It was unlikely that they could just tranquilize Shepherd and call it a day, so they did have to work with him to an extent. If they could take a day or two to secure sufficient weapons, ambush some members of Torfan security, blame it on the pirates to drive a wedge between them, and get an idea how the defenses were placed out then maybe they could carry out such a take over a section of the base and turn its defenses against the pirates.

"Do you really expect civilians to overpower trained soldiers?" Nihlus pressed.

"The scum holding Torfan hardly count as trained soldiers," Saren scoffed, "The pirates themselves are better fighters. You're right though, the civilians can't be expected to take Torfan's defenders in a straight fight. It will take some preparation to weaken them to the point that such an attack can carried out. Once we are properly entrenched we will be able to hold off further attacks. Then there will only be three forces on Torfan able to break such a stalemate."

"The Blue Suns, Blood Pack and the Special Intervention Unit." Nihlus surmised.

The SIU was the special forces branch of the Batarian military. Drawn from the most talented and least influential members of the warrior caste, their recruits were put through a highly lethal training program considered brutal even by Turian standards. Their equipment was a bit below the standard expected of such an elite force. They also lacked sufficient biotics to back up their firepower. Neither of those were there fault though. Batarian State Arms did produce some decent weaponry but the organization was so corrupt that most of it got sold either to Terminus Warlords or the nobility's private security. Batarian biotics were rare enough, even more so then for Salarians or Turians, and the fanatic priests of the Pillar of Purity considered such abilities to be a dangerous mutation. Outside of the noble, warrior and priest castes that had the clout to protect their children, most biotics were condemned as casteless and enslaved. Still even if they weren't up to the standards of Asari Commandos, STG operatives, or even some more highly honored Turian regiments, they were more than stubborn enough to wade through whatever defense were put in their way and create the breakthroughs needed to destroy such an uprising.

The Blue Suns and Blood Pack were both mercenary groups, and while they had little interest themselves in whether the slave revolt might succeed or fail, they could be easily hired by Torfan's governor if things grew desperate. The Suns were a very well equipped and disciplined mercenary group. New to the galactic stage, they were eager to prove their effectiveness and skill. They recruited heavily from military veterans particularly from humans and Turians who had seen fighting during the relay 314 incident, and used such a strong force as the backbone around which a powerful legionary structure was built and maintained. Such men were even more dangerous than the SIU thanks to their superior equipment which no doubt would be specialized for such close quarter fighting.

The Blood Pack were by far the most dangerous of the three. The predominantly Krogan force was the least disciplined and would lack uniform weapons or armor, since each Krogan expected to provide his own, usually by pillaging the dead for higher grade guns and credits. Yet for all their brutality, fighting a group of Krogan berzerkers in the tight cramped hallways of the moon base would be suicidal in the extreme. The Blood Pack alone might be able to take the whole station.

"We can probably hire the Suns to join us." Nihlus offered, "There should be a good number of humans with them, and the Suns in general always love a chance to play the hero. Especially when they are also paid well and won't get bombed out of existence with the rest of Torfan when the fleets arrive."

"It will be expensive but necessary." Saren agreed, "The SIU will have to brought down beforehand with some sabotage and assassinations. If we are a bit lucky though, they might just get moved off the moon before we have to strike."

"That just leaves the Blood Pack," Nihlus surmised, "The most dangerous of the three, and the one which will never take a job from a pair Turians."

"That one will be tricky." Saren admitted, "We will have to see how things stand exactly at ground level. If the Pack is frustrated with the pirates, or hasn't been paid yet, we might be able to stir up something between them."

"Possibly." Nihlus nodded while considering the situation, then brought up a separate concern "What's our plan if we can't find Shepherd?"

"We'll just have to interrogate some of the pirates for information." Saren dismissed, "Likely Shepherd hijacked one of their ships and just launched off into the depths of space and we will have to track him down once we're done here. I doubt a group of pirates could've killed a genetic monster like that."

"What if he's here but we can't find him with the slaves?"

"Oh come on!" Saren scoffed, "The man is four meters tall! It's not like he can just sneak his way around the base softening up their defenses while the slaves prepare to rise up. If a revolt does break out without our help or knowledge, then our first priority will be to destroy the starports so Shepherd can't escape to cause more trouble. Once we're certain that can't happen then we will just have to do whatever we can to keep as many of the slaves and Shepherd alive."

"I would prefer a more detailed contingency," Nihlus grumbled, "But a lot of this will depend on what we find down on the moon. Either way, we can't afford to take our eyes off of Shepherd for long, and will need to do a lot of running around behind the scenes to keep things smooth."

"Wouldn't hurt to keep the big man guessing just how many Spectre's are in the base in the first place." Saren agreed. "I take it you're volunteering to be the face?"

"Not to brag or anything," Nihlus smuggly offered, "But if there is one thing I am better than you at it's diplomacy."

"Why Nihlus you wound me!" Saren declared in a mock injured tone, "I'll have you know I have a nearly flawless diplomatic track!"

"Yes." Nihlus agreed dryly, "It is amazing how often people will agree with you when you have a gun to their heads."

"The only form of negotiation we Turians are suited for!" Saren further exclaimed, "Though I agree, it's perhaps not the best tactic here. We wouldn't want to hurt the man's pride or anything."

"Oh yes, I know not to ruffle a VIP's feathers."

"We would never want that." Saren concluded as he turned the ship down to the moon's surface. "Starting our approach now, best to begin electronic counter measures. Soon everything will begin."

* * *

In the medical bay of the Shadow's Glory, sparks danced through the air as Tali Zorah welded a plate of armor to her enviro-suit's chest piece as part of her ongoing efforts to not die. Shield generators were all well and good, but nothing quite beat having a sophisticated polymer weave of palladium, carbon fiber, and titanium set on top of a solid steel plate between her fleshy bits and the people trying to poke holes in her. Especially since she seemed determined to continue to let said people take pot shots at her instead of doing the sensible thing and trying to outrun a whole pirate fleet in a stolen gunship.

Normally doing this kind of radical reconstruction on the only enviro-suit she currently owned would be a bad idea. And not just because any holes she accidently put in the suit as she worked might just lead to her dying of the common cold in the next few days. Just taking off the suit to work on it like this was rather dangerous, in fact it would've been suicidal in most situations. Fortunately, the pirates, as men who regularly got shot at for a living, truly appreciated the value of a fully functioning medical bay, which included having a completely sealed off sterilized room for invasive surgery and the like. After pillaging the materials she needed from the armory, Tali had set up shop here to begin quickly improving her chances of getting through this whole mess in one piece.

The act of working the armor over and slowly improving it came quite naturally to Tali. These kinds of simple but necessary tasks like suit maintenance were often used as the starting point for children to learn how to do the kind of work that might one day save their lives. The movements of armor repair and upgrade had long since been ingrained in Tali's muscle memory and she fondly remembered how nervous she had been when she was first given an acetylene torch and had been told how her work there might just save someone's life down the line. Completely untrue of course, every suit the children worked on was scanned and tested thoroughly before anyone even thought of taking out side of the sterilized portions of the Quarian liveships. But telling the kids so helped them take the task seriously and learn the patience and precision that had kept the Quarian species for alive as long as it had been. Unfortunately such simple work left her mind free to wander a bit and come up with thoughts like those that came out of nowhere and blindsided her.

The Quarian people had managed to survive in the galaxy for over three hundred years without a homeworld or even a single planetary colony to help support them. They had done so in the face of a galaxy that at the very least mistrusted them as scam artists and thieves and more often than not, hated them as the creators of a race of murderous A.I. And they were slowly dying out. There was no getting around it, Shepherd was right, the Migrant Fleet had slowly shrunk over the course of her people's long exile. If this continued, eventually there just wouldn't be enough people to maintain it. Each ship would have to see to its own future, her people would scatter and fade out of sight, memory and existence.

Her father hoped and obsessed over reclaiming Rannoch, the only planet in the galaxy where her people's weak autoimmune system wouldn't be a death sentence for them all. When the Quarians had left the planet it had been inhabited by over two billion geth combat platforms, and there was no reason to suspect that their numbers had waned over the centuries as the Quarians had. If anything it would make sense for the geth to expand their numbers in the face of a likely counter invasion from the A.I. paranoid Citadel Council. Even if the Quarians could fight their way through the geth fleets to reach their home world, they would find the surface held against them by an inexhaustible supply of mechanical soldiers who already out numbered her entire species over a hundred to one. The only way to even hope of dislodging such a force was to extensively bombard the planet from orbit, rendering the only homeworld the Quarian people could ever know, a radioactive slag heap.

The Turians might be able to defeat such an enemy. Their people were hardy, well disciplined, well armed both by science and nature, and had the numbers to match or at least effective challenge the geth in a conventional ground battle. If the Citadel Council would just give her people the support they needed, then there was a fighting chance that one day Quarians would again walk on Rannoch. That chance was the hope and dream of every living Quarian. The chance that had failed to be realized for over three hundred years.

In Tali's opinion, if pressed, Salarians and Turians would agree that something had to be done about the geth and that her people's long exile had been punishment enough. Well most Salarians would, and some Turians at least, though most might disagree with that last part. The problem was the Asari, whose leading Matriarchs had all been alive when Rannoch fell, had all lived through the fear and shock of an A.I. species rising to the galactic stage. Those ancient and powerful women still blamed the Quarians for creating the geth and felt that it was better to leave well enough alone. So long as the Asari opposed helping the Quarians the more bigoted Turians would stand against her people and the Salarians wouldn't consider it worth the fuss to try and challenge the other two. Especially not when the geth had proven to be isolationists and had not troubled the galaxy since driving the Quarians out of their homes. Perhaps when those old Matriarchs passed on and a new generation, for whom the geth uprising was not a vivid memory, rose up the Quarians would have a better chance of securing Citadel cooperation.

But how long would that take? How long did the Quarians have? Tali didn't know. The Quarians knew they were running out of time, but actually investigating such a unthinkable prospect was taboo to the point of being almost illegal. Shepherd seemed to think her people would begin to suffer major genetic problems within the next five hundred years, which was barely half an Asari's lifetime. By the time the present generation of Asari maidens, the ones that Tali herself might be able to positively influence, had reached the Matriarch stage her people might already be doomed. But Shepherd…. He seemed to have a plan of some kind as well.

He talked about her people forming an alliance with the Krogan of all creatures. Tali had never spared the Krogan more than a passing thought her whole life, other than a fervent wish to never meet one in a dark alley. They were her people's opposite in many ways. Quarains had weak immune systems, vulnerable bodies and were on average, slightly weaker than humans. Krogans had survived on a planet that had been bombed into a nuclear wasteland, they were notoriously hard to kill, and were known to grab and flip Turians repulsor tanks over on their sides during the rebellions. The Quarians were a highly technical species, brilliant engineers, flawless space navigators, and could optimize and improve any broken down piece of tech they got their hands on. The Krogan on the other hand were not the most sophisticated people in the galaxy and tended to make due with what ever worked. Now that she thought about it, it seemed like her people could cover a lot of the weaknesses that the Krogan possessed, and vice versa.

Could the Krogan help her people retake their home world? They weren't exactly a numerous people either, but one Krogan could probably take down several geth combat platforms, maybe even take down a juggernaut in a one on one fight, or even go toe to toe with a prime. If the Quarians could get a substantial number of Krogan down to Rannoch and quickly take out as many manufacturing sites as possible before the geth could retaliate, then….

But would the Krogan even want to help her people? What could they possibly give them in return for such help? Would aligning with the Krogan further turn the Council against her people? And what about-

"How you doing in the there buckethead?" Jack called to her from the surgery hall's observation window behind her. Tali nearly dropped her welding tools as she cried out and jumped a bit straight into the air. She had been so absorbed in her own thoughts she hadn't noticed the proximity detectors she had set up outside sending alerts to her omnitool. She immediately whipped around to face the annoying human, and made sure that as much of her body as possible was hidden from view behind her heavy industrial welding apron, since it was kind of the only thing she was wearing at that moment. Jack's eyes snapped up to meet her own as she did so, and Tali got a sinking feeling that before that they had been observing her rear end in great detail.

"I am doing fine thank you." Tali responded after a moment, doing her best not to blush and failing, "Just finishing up some improvements to my suit. I am almost done."

"Good to hear." Jack commented smiling to herself in a much too smugly satisfied way. "How much longer do you think you will be? We just arrived in the Torfan system and should reach the moon in about an hour or so."

"Not long." Tali answered, "I was just putting the finishing touches on it now."

"Well by all means continue." Jack offered.

"I would prefer to work in privacy." Tali said stressing the last word. Privacy was something she had never really had back on the liveships growing up, but she had always had her suit between herself and the world and now felt quite vulnerable without it.

"Oh come on," Jack said jokingly. "Were both girls here, nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I would still-" Tali started,

"Not like you have anything to be embarrassed about really," Jack continued, ignoring her, "From where I'm standing you're looking pretty fine."

"Jack-" Tali again interjected.

"Would it make you feel more comfortable if I took off my shirt as well?" Jack placated.

"JACK!" Tali yelled her face now burning red as Jack actually started laughing at her, but she also turned to face away from the medical room. Clearly she had no intention of leaving, but was offering her some privacy at least. Tali huffed to herself, and made her way to the other side of her impromptu workbench to continue working while facing the observation window.

"In all seriousness though," Jack continued after calming down a bit. "I kind of need to talk to you."

"About what?" Tali asked as she resumed work on her armor, using her omnitool to scan for any cracks, tears, or holes in the enviro-suit that might need to be patched.

"I heard you had a heart to heart with with the big man." Jack explained, "That you expressed certain concerns to him, doubts about our mission here."

"Your mission?" Tali questioned accusingly, she hadn't been all that certain about Jack's relationship to the primarch. At first Tali had assumed that Jack was just another prisoner same as them all. But during the fighting in the slave hold, Jack had displayed some considerable biotic powers and Shepherd had relied on her to help guard and organize the people he had freed. It seemed that she was in fact some kind of co-conspirator with Shepherd and his grand plans.

"To destroy the practice of slavery throughout the galaxy." Jack clarified with total conviction that such a thing was not only the right thing to do but also actually possible.

"Well I can hardly say that sounds like a bad thing." Tali said defensively.

"But…." Jack supplied inviting Tali to explain herself.

"I do have my doubts about his methodology in this matter." Tali stated boldly, she was not about to be intimidated into silence after all. "These people he is leading are not soldiers, they are civilians. Husbands, mothers, confused teenagers and elders close to retirement. They should be back home living easy lives, not out here fighting just to survive. If all this was just to rescue them I could understand, but Shepherd means to make them all into an army and drive them into the heart of the Hegemony. It seems excessive."

Jack nodded in understanding, which Tali found surprising. She had pegged Jack to be the same kind of zealot that it seemed most of the people around Shepherd quickly turned into. It seemed to Tali that most people took it personally when those they so admired and trusted were questioned or insulted, but Jack seemed calm as if she expected this.

"That is the reality that we face." Jack accepted simply. "It is extreme but it doesn't seem to me like anything else is going to get the job done."

"Hmph." Tali snorted and added under her breath. "Is that you talking or is that Shepherd?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jack demanded, her head snapping around to glare at the young Quarian.

"Have you seen how he acts?" Tali demanded, this was dangerous a small part of her knew. Jack was a strong biotic so she could fold Tali in half with a wave of her hand if she pressed to far and actually insulted her. But Tali had to know there was at least some other sane person on this ship.

"How he talks to people and physically guides them at times." Tali pressed. "He acts like he's their parent or something. The total confidence he shows in everything, how he intimidates people just by existing and then always acts to reassure them that he has total control of everything and so long as they just do what he says things will turn out fine. That kind of charisma can pull people under a kind of spell that shuts their brains down and makes them follow. That's how he is going to get his army. By the end of this he will practically be like a drug to them."

"Ah." Jack said again as if she had expected this somehow. "So that's what this is really about. You're worried that Shepherd is pulling you under his influence and you're worried that you're losing yourself to him."

Tali looked away from the tattooed girl. She couldn't deny there was at least some truth to that. Already Tali had felt pride in herself over how he complimented her, had caught herself trying to make herself as useful to him as possible, she had even suggest a way she could kill people for him! If that wasn't a sign of getting caught up in a cult that what else could be?

"Alright then." Jack nodded to herself and looked back away from Tali. "There's no denying that Shepherd's got a silver tongue. Personally I think I've known him long enough to not be easily swayed by it, but this isn't about me is it? So the real question then is to just try and figure out what it is you really think about the situation. Can you think of any reason that Shepherd hasn't suggested, implied, or even hinted at, why this plan might actually be a good one?"

"What would that matter?" Tali objected, "If I've already been subverted by him, then this is just me making up excuses for him."

"Shepherd doesn't have mind control powers." Jack insisted. "Believe me, if he did this problem would've been solved five or six years ago now. If you can think of a reason why you would do what Shepherd wants to do that Shepherd himself didn't suggest, then it means that if left to your own devices you might have eventually come to the same conclusions he did. All Shepherd did was call your attention to an area of life you were previously content to ignore. Even if you've been caught up in Shepherd wake, well you can't really blame a river for taking you in a direction you already might have wanted to go."

"I don't think I should just let someone else run my life like this though." Tali further denied.

"He's not." Jack countered, "No one can do that, at the end of the day we are all responsible for our own actions. Even if we decide to follow someone else, that is still a choice we made."

"Alright so why did you choose to follow him?" Tali accused, "You know he might lead these people to their deaths, what make you think that is a good idea?"

"Because the sacrifices we might make here." Jack declared, her convictions unshakable. "Are nothing in comparison to the suffering we might end should we succeed."

"How do you figure that? Surely eventually something will end it without having to fight and die."

"I doubt that." Jack countered. "The Batarians have practiced slavery for nearly two thousand years so they don't seem to want to change. The Citadel Council has tolerated them for five hundred years and never intervened. Even the Alliance just wants the pirate attacks to stop and doesn't give a damn about what the Batarians do in their own territory. If for so long circumstances have allowed the practice to continue and no one now is willing to do anything to change that, then what reason do we have to believe that in the future such opinions might change? And if they never change then the practice will go on in perpetuity; infinite slavery creates infinite suffering which is far greater than the momentary discomfort we might have to endure to end it now."

"That is surprisingly well thought out." Tali admitted. She really didn't expect the constantly teasing and joking girl to be so serious about this.

"At least that the answer I give those stuck of jerks who go on and on about how we need to respect other people's culture when their just being assholes to everyone." Jack declared in a nasally and insulting voice. "The truth of the matter is that pirates and slavers are jerks and need to have their faces kicked in. And if I have to lie to a whole ship full of people to get those faces kicked in then so be it."

"Well that's one way to looking at it." Tali said laughing to herself a little bit as Jack returned to her more flippant attitude. "Bit of an odd choice to then work with the people who need their faces kicked in though."

"Yeah not my first choice I admit." Jack explained, "This one was Shepherd's idea really. He says there is no point in clearing out this generation of scum when there exists a culture that needs such scum to exist, pays for their services and invariably produces the kind of hopeless people who become such scum. So better to start kicking faces in at the top of the totem pole and then work our way down."

"This is all still insane," Tali insisted, "You know that right? You're taking on a galactic civilization. Nearly a hundred worlds and tens of billions of people with a just few hundred civilians, one pirate ship and one mad giant."

"I know right?" Jack laughed back at Tali, "It really isn't fair to the Batarians, maybe if we blindfolded Shepherd first then they would have a fighting chance."

Tali joined Jack in a brief fit of laughter as she put away her tools and started to climb into her enviro-suit. She had to admit to herself that no matter what logic and common sense told, she already couldn't really envision a world where Shepherd would be killed by the Hegemony. That easy overwhelming confidence the man showed in everything was just too much for her. Maybe she was getting pulled into his wake or whatever, but it would be good to see some of the galaxies greatest scumbags finally get their comeuppance.

"So you in?" Jack asked as the two of them calmed down. "Are you going to help us get this done?"

"Well I have to help you take over Torfan." Tali admitted still not quite ready to join the Shepherd cult. "Shepherd was right about that, there's no getting away from this fleet on my own, so the only way out is forward."

"I'm not talking about that." Jack pressed, "I'm talking about actually helping to bring down the whole Hegemony. You've been a huge help so far, by all standards you've earned the right to sit back and let things play their course at this point. But if you actually want to make the galaxy a better place, then there is some real work to be done. Shepherd and I need to know if we can fully count on you or not."

"And if I say I just want to go home at this point." Tali asked cautiously. She had hoped to sit on the fence for a bit longer, see how things played out. How Shepherd would honor his word or not before she fully committed. But if Jack was going to press her, then she was going to press right back.

"Shepherd will have the captain radio the other pirates and tell them he's sending out some scout ships to keep an eye on the adjacent systems." Jack explained with total sincerity but also mounting disappointment. "You can take one the shuttles and set right off with none the wiser and take your pick of the loot on board. Return to your pilgrimage or just use the ship and guns to earn your place with the migrant fleet. It's your life and your choice."

"Just like that?" Tali demanded skeptically.

"Just like that." Jack confirmed, "Not long after you holed yourself up in here Shepherd extended the same offer to all the humans on board. Anyone who doesn't want to fight can just leave now. So far, no one has taken the offer."

Of course no one had taken the offer. After Shepherd called them all out earlier about leaving their fellow humans behind to save their own skin, no one was going to take that walk of shame. Of course Tali didn't care what these humans thought of her, and it wasn't like they were going out of their way to rescue a bunch of Quarians. But….

"Well…." Tali hesitated, there would be no going back after this. If she gave into Shepherd even slightly she knew he was going to carry her halfway across the galaxy and back before he was done using her. "I suppose I can't really turn down a chance to rid the galaxy of Batarians pirates. Even indirectly there's just too much the migrant fleet can gain from such a victory. Ancestors know that taking out Torfan is probably worth a pilgrimage in and of itself. So yes. I'm in."

Even if this all came to not and the Hegemony proved too strong to overthrow, Tali was absolutely certain that Shepherd would live through this, probably with an army at his back and a fleet to his name. The man was certain to become one of the great mover and shakers of the galaxy, no doubt his infamy was going to grow by the day and with it his influence too. And by the ancestors he would know that at the beginning of it all, his earliest successes were in part owed to a Quarian girl. And one day he would pay her back for all that. And who knows? That might just help save her whole race from otherwise certain doom.

"Excellent!" Jack exclaimed whipping around while pumping her fist in the air. "The bucket head leet haxor has officially joined the party!"

"I would kind of prefer it if you would stop calling me that." Tali asked rather dryly, she doubted Jack would but it was worth asking. "It is kind of a pejorative."

"And Shepherd would love it if all the bulkheads in the galaxy were an extra meter tall or so." Jack dismissed. "But I don't see that one happening anytime soon either."

"How cute." Tali sighed. "So what do you all need me to hack now?"

"What makes you think we need something hacked?" Jack asked playfully.

"It's kind of the only thing Shepherd has asked of me so far." Tali pointed out. "Honestly I feel like I'm being typed casted at this point."

"Hey if you ever want to just start kicking down doors and taking names let me know." Jack offered, "I always love it when one of you nerds grows up and joins team jock. In all seriousness though we do need to once again call on your leet haxor skillz."

"I thought so." Tali said quite smugly as she finished attaching the least few suit pieces to herself. "So what do you need?"

"Right," Jack said rolling her eyes as she continued, "The original plan was to sneak all the people on this ship down to Torfan armed to the teeth and ready to kick ass. That way we wouldn't need to scramble desperately around looking for an armory to raid in the middle of a station that is more like a giant underground city. With at least this many people armed, we can just hold out until Shepherd convinces the pirate captains to throw their lot in with us and turn over their armories to our people. But after talking with some of the pirates on the ship we've realized there is a small problem.

"See," Jack further explained, "Turns out the governor here doesn't appreciate it when all the pirates and smugglers coming to Torfan try and smuggle pirated goods into the place. There's a very extensive, two step inspection process. All goods being brought down the to the moon base are inspected at the star port by a set of custom officials, tagged with an electronic shipping manifest, and then scanned again thoroughly at the main base before they are brought in. The pirates are confident that so long as they bring our people down one group at a time they can use the confusion of so many ships unloading at once to slip us through the chaos without undergoing the physical inspection. But there is no way past that second scan. So we need to break into their network, falsify a shipping manifest for each of the crates carrying our people, then hack the scanners to sign off on the manifests without incident or alerting the main bases' guards to the fact that our people are heavily armed and armored. Think you can help?"

"Ah I see." Tali said as she took all this in. "This is going to be tricky."

"I don't like the sound of tricky. What's the problem?"

"Torfan's security network is divided in two." Tali explained. "They have an outer network operating at the starports that is kept separate from the inner system working in the main base. The outer network can be remotely accessed even from near orbit and can also be easily hacked either by myself or the impromptu team you organized earlier. But the inner system is kept disconnected from the surface or any kind of long range communication. The inner system is connected to the outer system by a single line of cable running down their main underground highway and is kept inactive by default and can only be turned on from the main base. Any information sent from the outer network to the inner network is heavily scanned by some rather advanced anti virus V.I. and once the inner network is updated the outer network is scrubbed clean.

"We can easily falsify those manifests," Tali concluded, "Safely from orbit, but bypassing that system of scanners will require boots on the ground. Probably mine."

"So we have to get you down there safely and secretly before any of our other people make the trip?" Jack summarized.

"Yes." Tali confirmed, "Once I've gotten inside the main base it will be easy to subvert the system from one of their own consoles. Their inner security shouldn't be too bad, they mostly rely on their digital moat for protection. It will take a bit of time though, preferably an hour of preparation to break into the scanner and make sure it works the way we want it to."

"Well that sucks." Jack decried as Tali finished sealing herself into her enviro-suit and made one last scan to make sure it was all sealed tight. "How do you know so much about this place anyway?"

"The migrant fleet has made a few runs at Torfan in the past trying to break into their networks from a safe distance." Tali revealed. "If we could access their data about which pirates came to them at what times with what cargo and from which regions it would've given us a very good idea about where many of them operate and how to best avoid them. But that data just can't be remotely accessed and sending an infiltration team down to break into the main base was judged to risky to be worth trying. So my people are pretty familiar with Torfan."

"And what they just hand a leaflet out to every Quarian youth that leaves the fleet?" Jack asked mockingly. "'Here's a list of the galaxy's greatest shit holes and how to avoid them?'"

"Ah." Tali realized, "Not exactly. You see my father is part of the admiralty board and was rather bad about keeping his work life and home life separate. So i've kind of head him rant about how he would just love to crash a cruiser into this moon and be done with it forever more than once."

"Wait." Jack suddenly froze as Tali left the clean room and joined her in the main medical bay. "Isn't the Admiralty Board like your people's royalty or something?"

"They aren't royalty!" Tali exclaimed defensively. "You might call them the executive branch of our people in charge of leading our defenses and security but really it's the-"

"So you're basically a Quarian Princess!" Jack yelled out in mocking jubilation, completely ignoring Tali's attempts to explain the nuances of her government.

"No I am not-" Tali tried desperately to clarify.

"Princess Buckethead!" Jack so named her.

"OH NO!" Tali ordered as she drew her smg and pressed it to the powerful biotic's head. Tali liked to think of herself as a patient person, but she had her limits and this was definitely one of them. "You are not going to start calling me that! I swear by the homeworld Jack I will paint these walls with your brains!"

Jack just started laughing uproariously to herself as she stumbled away from Tali clutching at her sides. Tali just stood there frozen for a few seconds as she realized what it was she had just said. Oh Keelah she really was turning into a sociopath! She needed to get away from these insane humans, they were definitely a bad, no terrible influence on her. Eventually Jack grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the med bay.

"Oh that was just priceless!" Jack said as she continued to giggle and smirk to herself. "Oh god you just look so damn cute when you're furious like that!"

"I swear Jack," Tali said irritably as she calmed down a bit, "One day you are going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person and they are going to rip you in half for it."

"Well." Jack answered as she finally seemed to calm down a bit too. "They will certainly try anyway. Come on, we need to talk to Shepherd to figure out how to get you down to the planet in one piece and undetected."

Tali sighed to herself and continued following the very annoying human. As she did she pulled up her omnitool and continued to expand the library of viruses and hacking programs she had begun to develop on the fly while taking the ship. Well technically it wasn't her omnitool actually. It was the one that Shepherd had taken from that Krogan battlemaster, a man name Okeer according to the device itself.

Normally she would've gotten rid of the omnitool by now and replaced it with one of the more standard ones available in the armory. After all, like most Quarians, Tali was extremely sensitive to issues of theft. Most of the galaxy already thought of the Quarians as a race of thieves which was bad enough. But in the migrant fleet the ship one lived on was quite inevitably a very tight knit community, and developing an unsavory reputation there for having sticky fingers would incur a stigmatization far far worse than any corporal punishment that could actually be doled out for being caught with another's property. But this particular omnitool rather intrigued Tali and so far she had been unable to part with it.

On the surface it seemed normal enough. The U.I. was simplistic, there were only a handful of apps running on it, and most of those came preloaded on almost any omnitool, and the largest library on the whole thing was labeled 'research' and filled with several hundred gigabytes worth of pictures of Asari and Krogan females in various states of undress doing truly debaucherous and scandalous things to themselves. Pretty much exactly what one would expect from a Krogan omnitool. But it had two rather unusual extra features.

The first was that the device had been upgraded for a combat role. It had the hardware in place to deploy a hardened holographic 'omni-blade' for close quarter fighting but could also support other forms of electronic conflict. Perhaps such a thing was to be expected for a mercenary, though Tali couldn't remember is Okeer or any of the other Krogan had actually used the digital weapon. Either way, Tali had further upgraded the device with an overload and incinerate program to give her some extra ranged punch.

The far more fascinating feature was that one of the few apps on the omnitool was a fairly advanced encryption program. After some brief experiments, Tali had determined the program could convert text documents into an encrypted code and then hide that code in amongst other programs or files. Once she knew how the program worked she quickly started scanning the omnitool for any such hidden files. She had found that the entire research library actually contained hundred of files about other Krogan Okeer had encountered. When he had met them, what he thought of them, what they had accomplished in battle, what kind of injuries they had faced and survived, what families and clans they came from, and most extensively: whether any of them had attracted a mate and had children.

It seemed a very odd collection of data to assemble, and Tali could find almost nothing else in the omnitool related to it. Nothing to suggest why he had that data, what he meant it for or even how he had gotten most of it. The only thing even closely related was a set of notes Okeer had been writing up about the Krogan who had joined in the attack on Elysium that he no doubt was preparing to encrypt just before Shepherd incapacitated him. It was all very strange to Tali. In the end she had forwarded the info to Shepherd and dropped the matter. She just couldn't think of anything else to do with it at that time. Still though it painted an odd picture of this Okeer fellow that Tali might not have suspected from any Krogan. So she was curious about him, and decided to keep the omnitool. She would have to ask Shepherd about it when she met him.

Eventually they made their way back to the cargo hold the slaves had originally been held in and were beginning to return to. The humans currently looked like a rather wretched bunch at the moment. They were all covered in long ratty, worn out and well stained ponchos and cloaks that clearly had been donated from the least hygienic of the ships fighters. It made it look like they all had been stripped down, robbed and abused by the pirates during the journey which was exactly the point. Even as Tali deliberately searched for the glint of armor or the awkward bulge of a concealed weapon she could find no sign of the contraband she knew they all carried. Jack had obviously been very busy working on it all and it had paid off. This deception was almost certain to succeed if Tali could manage to hack and neutralize that scanner.

Shepherd stood near the entrance of the room alongside a few of his new lieutenants and the pirate captain he had recruited to help them. Unlike the rest of the humans, Shepherd wore no disguise, though his outfit had changed. Like Tali, Shepherd had taken the opportunity to upgrade the jumpsuit he had fought in before with plates of body armor and a few shield generators. It was not very excessive though. Properly armoring Shepherd in the heavy armor he could best utilize would've meant cannibalizing a half dozen lesser suits so Shepherd had much more the look of a light armored infiltrator rather than the heavy vanguard or sentinel he was better suited to.

"Bad new Shep." Jack declared as the giant noticed them enter and waved the pair over to join them. "Tali says we can't remotely access the systems we need to, she needs to get down there in person to clear the way for our people."

"Unfortunate." Shepherd noted with a shake of his head, "But not unexpected. Tell me Tali is your enviro-suit void capable? Could you take it on a space walk?"

"Well yes." Tali said sheepishly, she didn't know what this was leading to, but she had a sense she would not like it much. "Why do you ask?"

"And you're willing to go down there yourself?" Shepherd further asked her, "This is going to be dangerous you know."

"Well I don't really see what other option you have." Tali pointed out, but she really, really did not like where this conversation was going. "I am the best suited to this task, and I am ready and willing."

"All right then." Shepherd concluded smiling at Tali and reaching behind one of the crates to grab a disturbing number to straps and cables. "That makes this much easier if we won't have to seal you in a full space suit. It will save on a lot of weight."

"I'm sorry what are we doing?" Tali asked now openly dreading the next few seconds of her life.

"Going with that plan then?" Jack asked and Shepherd nodded at her. "A bit crazy, but it will take them by surprise for sure."

"What plan?" Tali demanded growing a little panicked, "What's going to take them by surprise?"

"Well I can hardly expect you to go down there alone." Shepherd explained, "So obviously I will have to come with you, and obviously it will be quite dangerous down there if you can't keep up with me."

"Hold on a second." Jack said grabbing Tali by the arm as a wave of what felt like frozen pins and needles raced across Tali's body, "This will be much easier if you're in stasis for this next part."

"WAIT just hold on a sec-" Tali shouted as the wave passed over her and she blacked out for a moment as her body was suspended in time. When she came to a few minutes later, she found that she had been strapped down and attached to Shepherd's chest.

She had been wrapped up in a series of straps and long sheets of cloth so that she was now being held in place like an infant clinging to their mother's breasts. The side of her head was pressed against Shepherd's pectorals and her legs were curled up against his guts. She was tied down tight only able to freely move her head and arms. Shepherd's body felt quite warm to her even through her suit, which had triggered some of its internal cooling systems to compensate for the massive heater pressed against her. She could almost hear his heartbeat through his armor and her helmet. Somewhat understandably, she promptly freaked out.

"What the hell have you people done you BOSH'TETS!" Tali screamed in true and righteous fury, and was completely ignored.

"How's it feel Shepherd?" Jack asked, "Would you prefer her on your back instead?"

"No the balance is better this way." Shepherd declared, swinging his arms back and forth while stretching his legs and back, getting a feel for how he could maneuver with his new passenger. "Plus it's easier to keep track of just where she is incase we get into a firefight."

"It just looks a bit awkward from this angle." Jack commented but accepted Shepherd's analisis.

"It feels very awkward from where I AM!" Tali again shouted out, "Why am I strapped to Shepherd's chest?!"

"I told you," Shepherd explained very calmly and matter of factly. "You need an escort down there, and won't be able to keep up with me on your own. So it only makes sense for me to carry you."

"'Only makes sense?'" Tali repeated in stunned disbelief before her fury returned in full force. "ONLY MAKES SENSE!? How does any of this make any sense?! You're supposed to be the leader of this little army. The leader does not go out on dangerous missions while abandoning his men! You're supposed to stay here and inspire and command them! And I remind you, you are a four METER tall giant! This is an infiltration mission, that means stealth! The only people who wouldn't notice you trying to sneak into their base are those actively trying not to see you! And WILL have you know, that even though I might seem rather small and weak to you, I certainly a lot more precise and quick on my feet than a lumbering, giant, tactless oaf like you!"

"She has a point Shep." Jar'kannath noted, "You don't really seem like the sneaking type. I've got a few men who know how to move unseen while in plain sight. They could take the Quarian down and slip into the base easily enough."

"I would have to infiltrate the base either way." Shepherd declared remaining infuriatingly controlled in the face of Tali ever mounting anger. "No offense captain, but the bureaucrats in the station will probably be a bit more attentive to their cargo then your men were. If they notice a giant in the slave pens they will start asking question that will lead to a shoot out before we're ready. Plus I this point there is more important work for me to do then inspiring the troops. My lieutenants and Jack can get the rest of our people organized easily enough, and I will have to bleed the base a bit before we can bring it down. Escorting Tali while doing that is an added bonus."

Shepherd entourage had looked a bit skeptical about the whole plan up until then, unwilling to let their giant leader put himself in such a needlessly dangerous position. Now they swelled with pride at his confidence in them and nodded in agreement with his assessment. To an extent Tali had to agree with them. It was kind of austonding that the pirates on the ship hadn't noticed Shepherd before he moved against them, though it might be expected since they were confident of having already won. It did seem dangerous to bet on such luck a second time. But….

"That doesn't change the fact that this plan won't work!" Tali insisted, "You will be spotted the moment you set foot in that base."

"Eh," Shepherd casually dismissed. "I picked up a tactical cloak or two from the armory, so they shouldn't be able to easily spot me. This won't be a problem."

"A cloaking field helps yes," Tali conceded but felt that Shepherd wasn't taking the skill of stealth seriously enough. "But that's only part of it all. The field will blur the air around you if you move too quickly, does nothing to dampen sound, and makes it much harder for you to see what you're doing. If you don't have total control of yourself and awareness of your surroundings, people will still be able to find you!"

"Oh just give over Shepherd!" Jack shouted at the giant as he opened his mouth to respond. "You can argue till you're blue in the face, but that won't change their minds. Some preconceptions about people just run too deep after all. Just move already and shut them up."

That was a confusing statement. What was Jack talking about? Shepherd didn't seem to know either since he just shrugged his arms and then-

That was about as far as Tali's mind got before her whole world suddenly blurred as her head was pushed back into the sling holding her as her inertia fought desperately against the sudden motion of her host. She felt her body twist about as that irresistible acceleration turned on a dime a few times and flipped over itself at least once. Then in a blink of an eye she found herself and Shepherd up in the ceiling rafters, back behind the group they had just stood in front of, some thirty meters away from where Shepherd had stood not a full second before. They were wrapped up in a cloaking field, and Shepherd had not made a single sound.

The assembled humans and Batarians with the exception of Jack stared dumbfounded at the spot where Shepherd had just stood. Slowly a few of them started to turn around looking over the room around them, like Jack was already doing. Their eyes slid right past the point where Tali and the giant were hidden. After a few seconds, the giant began to move.

"How in God's name did he do that?" One of the former marines finally exclaimed.

"He just moved, and then he was gone." Another echoed the sentiment.

"Something that large has no business moving that fast." Jar'kannath concluded the thought on everyone's mind.

"Hey Shepherd!" Jack called out to the room at large. "Be careful with our little hacker when you do that! Those suits don't come with inertia dampeners so if you pull more than two or three 'g's with her she might black out!"

"Of course Jack." Shepherd answered, removing the cloak and reappearing in their midst. "I wouldn't want anything to happen to her."

Tali had remained dumbstruck as Shepherd had slowly progressed towards the group. A tactical cloak wasn't perfect invisibility. As its mass effect fields bent light around the wearer is created distortion in the air that could be easily spotted when the wearer stood in a direct powerful light source or while moving about. But Shepherd's movements had been perfect as he approached his targets. He held to the shadows, avoid the overhead lights, distributed the weight of his steps perfectly to not make the slightest noise even when stepping on metal bars that really shouldn't have been able to bear his weight. He moved without a sound, slipped around people's peripheral vision, froze up completely when their eyes slid over him. He didn't move that slowly either, coming back to the group in less than half a minute. And Tali knew, that if any of them had actually seen him, he could've put on another burst of speed and vanish from their sight, leaving the viewer to wonder if they had really seen anything at all.

"Okay." She admitted, "This might actually work. How do you move so quietly?"

"That's actually the way he normally moves." Jack commented dryly. "When we were younger he used to sneak up on people all the damn time. Sentries at the base would be minding their own business and then suddenly poof! There's a mountain standing behind them asking what time it is. After the third time someone accidently shot the ceiling Mama Shepherd insisted he learn how to move while making at least some noise. Took him six months to get it down properly."

"It's just a terribly inefficient way of moving you know." Shepherd explained, taking a few steps that now reverberated around the room. "I have no idea how you people can stand doing it all the time. Nearly drives me mad."

"Right." Tali said now substantially more self conscious about how she walked. "Alright I admit, strapping me to his chest might be a good idea after all. So how do get down to the mo-"

"There you are you giant worthless, spineless piece of thresher maw refuse!" A loud voice boomed from the entrance to the cargo bay. Shepherd turned to face the voice and Tali saw it belonged to the Krogan warlord Okeer. And he looked rather angry.

"I was wondering when the anesthesia would wear off." Shepherd said under his breath before more formally greeting the enraged Krogan. "Good to see you up and about Okeer. How's your arm feeling?"

"It hurts like hell you ass." Okeer answered with a sneer and an angry glare.

"Yeah but that's just the general phantom pain." Shepherd stated cryptically, "I was asking if there is any specific pain around the joint, it might be the nerve connections acting up."

Okeer was left stunned for a second after that, and then looked down at his arm. Now that Tali also got a good look at it she could see that it was slightly bulkier than his other arm, and didn't match the color of his armor. With a start, Tali realized it was a cybernetic replacement. That made sense actually, she remembered that Shepherd had torn off his original arm to give Tali his omnitool. His omnitool that she was still using. Oh crap.

"That's new." Okeer finally stated, apparently just realizing that one of his arms had gone missing and been replaced. "Where did this come from?"

"Captain Jar'kannath had a good selection of prosthetics to choose from." Shepherd explained. "All sized for Batarians though, so i had to make some alterations to yours. Not my best work, but I was a bit pressed for time."

"Completely irrelevant." Okeer dismissed with a shake of his head before focusing his glare back on Shepherd. "Why am I still alive? Why are the Batarians still alive? Weren't you going to hijack the ship?"

"Captain." An electronic voice interrupted the two coming from Jar'kannath's omnitool, "We entered orbit around Torfan. According to the official docking schedule the governor just published, we are slated to be the fourteenth ship unloaded. That gives Shepherd about three hours to get going, maybe less."

"Thanks for the update Harkon." Jar'kannath answered, "Keep us posted."

"We're on Torfan." Okeer surmised as he looked around the room at all the humans begin to assemble into their firing teams and enter their cages. "You've got these people armed and the pirates helping you. You're going to try and free the rest of your people. And the pirates are trying to save their own skin."

"From the Hegemon." Shepherd supplied, "He's setting them up you know."

"Well obviously." Okeer agreed, "It's got nothing to do with me though. So answer my question: why am I alive?"

"I'm a succor for high drama." Shepherd answered with a shug. "Didn't seem right for you to go out like that. A dying race deserves a glorious death I think, on a battlefield somewhere outnumbered a dozen to one, screaming death a glory as each one of them falls. Not getting trounced by one unarmed man in a slave hold."

"If you think," Okeer said with a snort, "That this means I owe you some favor or debt of honor, you've got another thing coming. If you're too dumb to kill your enemies when you've got the chance it's not my problem."

"Oh come now Okeer." Shepherd said sounding faux insulted, "I'm not so low as to try and brow beat you into following me. I just didn't have the heart to kill you like that is all. Give me your word that your blood pack won't get in our way on Torfan and we can go our separate ways."

"As If I would lift a finger." Okeer called back with disgust in his voice, "To save a fat useless fool like that oaf who calls himself a governor. You've got my word. Just return my shotgun and my effects and I will be out of your way."

"Hmm." Shepherd pondered for a moment with a finger on his chin before answering. "No."

"What?" Okeer demanded voice full of malice.

"I've taken a liking to your shotgun." Shepherd explained, "I beat you, and looted it from you downed body. So it's mine now and I intend to keep it."

"You can't loot someone who's still alive!" Okeer insisted "That's just called stealing!"

"Semantics." Shepherd dismissed. "I'm still keeping it."

"Why you little-" Okeer growled and advanced on the giant. But only a step or two before three or four dozen humans all around him drew out their concealed weapons and leveled them at the Krogan battlemaster. All the while Shepherd stared him down with a wide grin on his face and madness in his eyes.

"If you want to try and take it back from me Okeer," Shepherd offered, his voice full of barely restrained excitement. "Then you are more than welcomed to come and try to fight me again. This time I'll tear off your legs and replace them with jet boots. It will be great, good clean fun, and you'll wake up feeling stronger than ever."

The Krogan bared his teeth and flexed his hands like he was grasping at invisible weapons. But he held his place. Okeer had been the only warrior on the whole ship who had even so much as slowed Shepherd down, getting a few clean hits on the giant and drawing his blood with a point black shotgun blast. Every other pirate or mercenary who got in Shepherd's way went down like an oak tree before a crashing meteor. And that was when Okeer had been armed, not coming off anesthesia and had a few lackies to throw as Shepherd first. Now Shepherd was armed, armored and surrounded by zealots riding high off their victory over the pirates. The warlord knew the odds, and he had bigger goals to give his life for than this.

"Fine." Okeer conceded taking a step back and lowering his arms. "What do you want for it?"

"Ten heads." Shepherd instantly named his price as the humans around him lowered their weapons.

"Heads?" Okeer asked confused.

"Yes heads." Shepherd clarified. "Taken from Torfan's security personnel with their badges of office to prove their identity. Bring me ten heads and you can have your shotgun back."

Okeer held silent for a moment and then dryly chuckled to himself. "Is that all? I'll have them for you within a hour of landing."

"Agreed."

"Just have my gun and omnitool with you when we make the exchange down there. I don't want to have to retrieve them from the Batarians if you've gotten caught and lost them."

"I didn't say anything about an omnitool Okeer." Shepherd added bringing the warlord up short. "Those ten heads just get you the shotgun back."

"What are you going on about now?" Okeer demanded his hateful glare back in full force.

"Tali here," Shepherd said resting a hand on his passenger who had been doing her absolute best not be noticed during all of this. "My cyber warfare expert, is using that omnitool and I can hardly be expected to deprive her of such a necessary tool for just ten heads."

"What no!" Tali exclaimed shaking her head furiously. "I don't need this omni-"

"Hush Tali," Shepherd said using two his fingers to cover the speakers on her helmet. "I'm scheming here, don't worry."

"You think I'm going to do more of your dirty work over some omnitool?" Okeer sneared, "I'll just get a new one later."

"Well if that's how you feel about it," Shepherd pressed, "Then I'll just have to forward the contents of your research file to the appropriate authorities."

"Do you really think you can threaten a grown man with the contents of his porn stash?" Okeer dismissed.

"Do you really think your omnitool could stay in the hands of a Quarian for ten hours and they wouldn't manage to crack your encryption?" Shepherd countered. "I think the STG would just love to learn about what you've been up to."

"Are you blackmailing me Shepherd?" Okeer asked eyes full of hate and threats of violence.

"No I'm extorting you warlord." Shepherd responded that wild look still plastered to his face. "So do you want to negotiate for those ten years of your life back do we have to keep trying to one up each other?"

"Ten years!?" Okeer cried out. "Do you think such a pitiable amount of time matters to me? I remember life before the Salarians came to Tuchanka begging for our help against the Rachni! I have walked the stars since before your people knew how gunpowder worked! Be it ten years or another thousand I will continue my work and succeed."

"You don't have another thousand years old man!" Shepherd shouted back. "If you have another twenty in you I'd be amazed! Can you really put your life's work, your people's future on the line just for one petty grudge match!? Does the thought of a true cure really mean so little to you?"

Okeer quivered with rage, but held his place and his peace. The entire hanger bay held dead silent. The spectacle of the encounter had attracted numerous onlookers who now all stood dumbstruck at what Shepherd had suggested. Tali's mind was held just a paralyzed by the thought as it had been by Shepherd's agility. This omnitool on her arm held secrets to curing the genophage? Tali wasn't certain if she look at the thing with wonder or disgust.

"The day will come human." Okeer vowed. "When my people are free of that cursed disease and then your worlds will burn in our vengeance."

"If you believe that Okeer, then you are a fool." Shepherd pronounced.

"You're the fool!" Okeer insisted, "When my people rise up again-"

"They will find the Turian fleet is still far more skilled and disciplined than anything your people can field against them." Shepherd prophesied, "You will find you still have no defence against the next biological weapon of mass destruction the Salarians can throw at you. And you will find a galaxy arrayed against you and no hope of ever defeating them all. If you rise up like that, they will come and purge Tuchanka in nuclear fire and death."

"If that is so," Okeer concluded, "Then it will be far grander death then slowly rotting away to be forgotten."

Now it was Shepherd's turn to laugh, "A grand dream for sure. One that any man might hope in. If it comes to that in the end Okeer, I give you my word I will personally lead the first troops down to the planet that will hunt you all to the end."

In a moment, Okeer's fury likewise turned to laughter as he grinned like a mad man and joined Shepherd. After they both had calmed down they looked over the other, each weighing the other in new found light. Okeer at last nodded to himself and spoke again.

"Alright, name your price for the omnitool. You want another ten heads?"

"The future of a species can hardly be sold for something so petty." Shepherd dismissed. "Bring me the head of Torfan's governor and I will give you back your hope, and a way off of Torfan when the time comes."

"The governor huh? Tricky" Okeer said contemplating. "That one could take a while. How long before you start taking names down there."

"Thirty six hours at the most." Shepherd declared.

"That's a rather short time to raise up an army." Okeer noted.

"I'm on something of a tight schedule for this one." Shepherd said with a sigh, "I would move even faster than that if I didn't have to play politics with the pirates captains first. Oh the things I do for the sake of orbital firesupport."

"Hmmph." Okeer grunted in understanding, he himself had done some extreme things for the same. "I can work with thirty six hours. The rest of the pack might not like it, but I will knock some sense into them."

"Agreed." Shepherd concluded, "Now if you will excuse me, I have to get Tali down to Torfan's surface and start causing a little chaos."

Okeer nodded and Shepherd departed from the cargo hold. Jar'kannath and Jack accompanied him, and Tali finally found she could breath easily again. Behind them, Okeer also departed to rouse the rest of his blood pack that had survived the beating Shepherd had given them.

"That went better than expected." Shepherd commented. "Now we've got the blood pack on our side, things will be much easier."

"Assuming he can talk the rest around to his side." Jar'kannath qualified, "If the governor offers them enough money they pack might split on the issue. They've been known to take both sides before."

"The warlord's name holds a lot of weight in the right circles." Jack added, "If he backs us most of the pack will come with him at the very least. No matter what, most Krogan and all Vorcha like to be on the side that wins. I'm more worried about this research of his, I know the genophage has always been a pet peeve of yours Shepherd but is this the right time to start working on it?"

"It will certainly have to take a back seat to dealing with the Hegemony," Shepherd explained, "But Okeer offers a solution in that regard I had never considered. He wants to selectively breed out his people's vulnerability to the genophage. If he can pull it off, create an actually pure enough male that can reproduce normally, it gives us a viable solution that can implemented gradually while we adjust the galaxy to the reality of a recovering Krogan populace. While at the same time the Krogan will remain weak enough at first that they will have to compromise with the galaxy to avoid just being wiped out immediately, which will give us a chance to actually integrate their populace with galactic culture. It might just be our best bet in that regard. No matter what that man must make it off of Torfan alive and well."

"Wait." Tali interjected. "You've been planning to cure the genophage? You want to unleash the Krogan back onto the galaxy?"

"The genophage is one of the greatest injustices ever perpetrated by the Citadel Council." Shepherd answered with total conviction. "Possibly only surpassed by what the Council did to your own people. An act of slow genocide committed against the people very people who saved the galaxy from the Rachni. All because the Council lacked the will to bring the rebellions to their full conclusion and force a compromise out of the Krogan clans. I won't abide it. I can do better than that. I will do better than that."

"It just seems reckless," Tali continued more than a little confused. The rebellions had been one of the worst periods of galactic history. But she couldn't really deny that the Krogan had in many respects been betrayed by the galaxy that pulled them up out of Tuchanka in the first place. It was one of those rather terrible facts of life that people tried not to think about. The genophage was a terrible thing, but most people thought that a restored Krogan people would be even worse.

"Oh it's reckless alright." Jack agreed. "But Shepherd here also thinks that it's possible to reunite your people with the Geth. So 'reckless' isn't the kind of thing that Shepherd pays much attention to."

"Huh." Tali responded. She couldn't really even begin to process what Jack had just said. Reunification. No. That was not a thing that Tali could afford to deal with right now at all. Best to ignore it. "So like I was saying earlier before Okeer barged in, how are we going to get down to Torfan to start infiltrating their main base?"

"Oh that's easy." Shepherd said with a completely straight face. "We'll just jump."

* * *

AN: Turns out it's a bad idea to read fanfiction while I'm trying to write fanfiction. I end up wanting to write fanfiction about other people's fanfiction. And there would just be no end to that kind of nonsense. Anyway I blame that for dragging out the update time for this chapter.

I had originally intended to do all of Torfan in one chapter. But after writing 15,000 words i realized that I hadn't even gotten them down to the moon yet, so probably better to do this one in parts rather than waiting for the final end of it all. There will probably just one more part to finish this opening arc and then on to the rest of the revolution. Maybe.

I'm not the most organized author in the world when it comes to writing. I have ideas about specific scenes and lines of dialogue I want to get to, but all the connective tissue around them I kind of make up on the fly. I think this helps with conversations by making them flow more organically, but it does kind of stretch things out with some less than necessary advents and conversations. In the question of maintaining a good pace vs world building and allowing people to just interact I seem to fall on the side of letting things drag out a bit.

anyway. Let me know what you all think. I love getting review notices, it fills me with the determination to keep writing so feel free to review and critique.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Trouble in Torfan

Part 2: Preperation

T-33 hours

"So when you say we're going to jump," Tali Zorah asked the giant madman she was presently strapped to the chest of, in a voice that sounded confused and strangely hopeful to Jack, "You mean out of a shuttle right? So that we can approach the hanger bay from the ground and more easily sneak in from outside? Right?"

"No." Shepherd answered. "Shuttles can be easily tracked. We need to get in completely clean without raising any suspicions."

"But surely a ship won't raise any suspicions." Tali insisted, the slightest bit of panic entering her tone as her mind made its first guess on just how she was going to get down to the planet. "I mean the pirates in the fleet must all be eager to get down to the planet and enjoy some rest and relaxation."

Jack really did feel sorry for her at this point. Shepherd was determined to get this done his way, and trying to get him to give up on an idea like this once it was stuck in his head was almost impossible. This wasn't even her fault. Shepherd had wanted to prove he could do something like this for about three years now, but back home his mother had laid down the law and refused to even think of such an experiment.

"Sadly not." Jar'Kannath supplied scoffing to himself. "The scribes that run Torfan are all convinced they were sent here as some devine punishment for not being petty and assholeish enough in their last lives. Any ship going down without explicit permission will get turned away, probably after they take a pot shot or two at it. With so many ships going down all at once now, and since the governor has published an official list on the order they can do it in, any unscheduled vessels making for the surface will likely get shot down without hesitation or warning. A couple of the captains are probably planning to get rid of the mercs they hired for this job by sending off ahead of everyone else. I know I would. If I hadn't hired Krogans anyway, they have a nasty habit of surviving impossible crash landings and demanding to be paid regardless. Not going to try that one again after Mindoir."

Jack believed it had been a mistake to outright refuse to do the experiment. If they had just scheduled it for later and then conveniently forgotten or kept postponing it due to malfunctioning equipment, then Shepherd probably would've dropped it eventually. Denying him any chance to prove himself right must've seemed to Shepherd like they doubted he could do it, an almost surefire way to get Shepherd to do something stupid.

"So if we can't take a shuttle how are we getting down?" Tali asked her voice now more confused and rather hesitant.

"I told you." Shepherd explained calmly and clearly, "I am going to jump. First we'll walk out of the airlock over to where the ship drops its trash from."

"Torfan's security insists we unload our waste into the upper orbit of the planet." Jar'Kannath commented dryly. "They seem to think the cloud of debris makes for some kind of defence for the planet. As if a round from a spine gun is going to get deflected by a few clumps of frozen feces."

"And that debris will shield us from detection when we jump down to the surface." Shepherd continued.

"Jump down." Tali repeated in stunned disbelief.

"Yes jump down." Shepherd confirmed.

"From about three hundred kilometers off the ground?" Tali asked.

"I think we're closer to four hundred right now." Shepherd answered.

"Four hundred thirty five to be precise." Jar'Kannath clarified.

"Alright." Tali concluded, her breathing was accelerating Jack noticed but she did a good job of controlling herself even still. "I have several questions at this point."

"How many of them," Jack interjected, "Revolve around the existence of Shepherd's sanity?"

"Most actually," Tali confirmed. "In fact almost all of them I think."

"Ah well there's your problem then." Shepherd offered, "You're wasting time on an entirely pointless line of thought. Everything I do is perfectly sane by definition. It's only a question of whether it will work or not."

"Oh no you don't!" Tali shouted at the man, "You don't get to just define yourself as sane and wave away any objections to your harebrained ideas! Especially not when your idea is to JUMP down to a planet from orbit!"

"Unfortunately I kinda do." Shepherd insisted, "Insanity is deviation from socially normal behavior. You can't accuse a Turian of being obsessive compulsive or a Quarian of being a germaphobe. Those behaviors are drilled into them by their respective cultures to the point that it might as well be genetic. It practically is genetic in the case of a Quarian. And there is no social norm to compare me to.

"I might look human," Shepherd continued, "But I'm not. Not really. There are three cell growths in my brain labeled 'Unknown Shepherd Organ' seven, eight and nine. I know for certain that I entirely lack two of the major emotional impulses that drive and shape human psychology. There is no one in the universe even remotely like me, as far as I know. Therefore any decision I make is the choice that one hundred percent of beings like me would make in the same situation. Therefore I am sane by definition."

The silence that followed his declaration lasted uncomfortably long. Tali and the pirate captain were both stunned. Jack couldn't blame them. She hated it when Shepherd talked like this. She liked the man, admired him even as a kind of older brother she could always count on. Hearing him go on about the matters that fundamentally separated him from the rest of humanity disturbed her. Yeah he was a giant, and yeah he wasn't really alright in the head if she was honest. But he normally seemed just so real, so personal, so familiar really, and then every now and then something would come up that reminded her of the fact that he had likely been built deliberately as a weapon meant to kill and slaughter.

It was a fact she thought she understood. Something so similar to humanity couldn't have evolved naturally outhere in the wider galaxy. He must've been made by someone, and the only reason to make something like him would be as a weapon. It was a fact she knew and accepted, in much the same way that most people knew that tigers were dangerous.

Tell someone that tigers were dangerous and they would brush it off. Of course tigers were dangerous everyone knew that. How could you not know that? They're tigers for god's sake! It didn't stop some people from keeping them as pets though. But then lock a person in a room with a hungry tiger, well, then a person came to realize just how true that simple fact really was. In the same way, Jack knew in her head that Shepherd was an actual killing machine. It didn't stop her from liking and respecting the man though. And it did nothing to prepare her for the times when Shepherd suddenly started acting like a killing machine.

She didn't really remember all that much of what the two of them had done on Elysium as they hunted pirates and looked for the right ship to take control of. Like most real life or death fights, the fighting itself all kind of ran together in her head. Her mind was too busy trying to stay alive to focus on properly archiving her experiences at the time. But she remembered how it started. She remembered Shepherd leading her, Miranda and a few of the other jocks to where the fighting was happening. She remembered being all gunhoe and excited to do some real fighting. To show those four eyed bastards that they didn't mess with humanity and her family. She remembered rounding the corner to join the fight. And she remembered how Shepherd had suddenly just moved. In what seemed like two steps at the most he had been amongst a whole squad of the SIU, the best the Batarians had to offer, and he had all but torn them limb from limb. In the blink of an eye, with just a few quick moves of his hands and knees, he left behind six men, broken, crushed, twisted, torn, utterly and completely slaughtered before they had any idea what was even happening to them. She remembered. She shuddered at the thought.

"So," Tali said awkwardly after the silence had dragged on for sometime. "How are you going to put on a spacesuit with me strapped to your chest like this?"

"I can't really," Shepherd explained, "The good captain doesn't have a suit that can fit me, and I didn't have time to make one myself."

"That will kill you." Tali said in a deadpanned voice.

"Not really." Shepherd explained, "I can hold my breath long enough to reach the planet."

"That will kill you faster!" Tali shouted. "The air in your blood and lungs will boil and explode without air pressure to keep them contained."

"No." Shepherd rejected, "I just need to contract my skin with enough force to recreate the effects of air pressure with in me."

"Skin does not work that way!" Tali insisted.

"Well yours doesn't."

"Do either of you want to add anything to this!?" Tali shouted at Jack and the captain, "The man you all are putting all your hope in is going to kill himself for nothing. How can you all be ok with all this craziness?"

"The whole situation is insane!" Jar'kannath shouted out back at her. "It was insane when my slaves overthrew my whole ship! It was insane when this crazy giant madman decided not to kill me and all my men. And it's insane that you all think you can bring down the whole Hegemony with nothing but a bunch of upstart slaves and a fleet of outcast pirates. But you know what? Screw it all! I should've died several hours ago. So at this point I don't care what other forms of madness the world throws at me anymore. So if Shepherd wants to crash this ship into the rotfather's black swollen eyes to cure all the galaxy's diseases then I say full speed ahead! Time to die with our boots on boys!"

The group finally stopped outside of one of the ship's main airlocks' while the captain panted to himself and tried to calm down a bit. Around them a few of the pirates that had overheard their captain's tirade made a strange sign to themselves. They raised seven fingers up, four on one hand three on the other and then brought them together and folded them flat to made a kind of shield that they held over their hearts or eyes before turning away. It was a strange sight indeed, and the captain looked slightly embarrassed by the whole thing when he saw them. Jack then decided to add her two cents as well.

"There's no use arguing Tali," Jack explained, "Shepherd has had his mind set on trying this for sometime. Ever since we watched that one old movie where they threw that alien monster out an airlock to kill it. Don't worry, we'll drain the air out the airlock slowly and at the first sign something is going wrong we'll pull you both out of there and we can come up with a much more sensible plan moving forward."

"You people are such a bunch of worry warts." Shepherd insisted as he opened the airlock and stepped in. "The more time we waist up here the worse things will get down there. Just be sure to get the geek squad to work on hacking into their outer security system quickly. Just because I know this will work doesn't mean I want to stand in near vacuum outside of the pirate's airlock for next hour or two. Let's get going already."

With a groan from Tali, Shepherd closed the airlock and Jack began to cycle out the air. In seconds the air pressure was low enough to give a normal human altitude sickness, but Shepherd showed no signs of discomfort. Shortly thereafter the chamber was in total vacuum and Shepherd gave a thumbs up to open the outer airlock. Jack complied and the two soon stepped out into the void of space. Jack closed the outer bulkhead and re-pressurized the chamber.

"So," Jack said turning to the pirate captain, "The rotfather huh?"

"Sorry," The captain apologized, "I know it's bad luck and all, to name the old gods, but I swear sometimes there's just no other response to some of the things that man does."

"Hey man I ain't judging you." Jack dismissed. "I just thought all you Batarians followed your sacred pillars for a religion or whatever, never heard of any kind of 'old gods' or anything."

"We don't-" Jar'kannath started and stutterd, he paused for a moment as he considered his words. "It's not a religion. The Pillars are more of a moral philosophy, The Pillars that Hold Up a Man's Life, no Batarian believes in any gods. Supposedly people followed the 'old gods' back before the Hegemony started and spread the teachings of The Pillars. And supposedly people used to do all kinds of horrible things to earn their favor, like kill, rape, and Batarian sacrifice, those sorts of things. Then 'the Hegemony saved us all from terrible debauchery,'or some such nonsense.

"Nobody ever talks about the old gods these days," Jar'kannath continued, one of his hands twitching at his side making geometric shapes in the air as he did so. "Certainly not where any priest can hear you anyway. But if you really want to cuss someone out it's strangely cathartic to evoke that old superstition. Lot's of pirates and smugglers openly do it out here away from the confines of civilization, and lot of the older pirates will smack you upside the head for it even worse than the priests ever did cause they say it's bad luck. I don't know. Aren't you humans still pretty religious?"

"Some people are." Jack answered with a shrug, "Never really understood how these days. Last I checked the bible never mentions god making aliens or anything so at the very least it seems kind of outdated to me. I guess some people take comfort from old traditions. To each their own I guess."

"I could live with that." Jar'kannath agreed.

"Rotfather though." Jack said rolling the name across her tongue, "I kind of like it. It's a good name for an old evil god. I could easily see something like that winding up in like a D&D manual or video game."

"Yeah well don't go yelling it around the crew." Jar'kannath insisted. "That kind of thing makes people jittery. Kinda makes me jittery to if I'm honest. It really is bad luck. Besides you humans already have all the best swear words in the galaxy, so why go taking ours?"

"I will admit that mankind's vast lexicum of profanity is our greatest contribution to the galaxy thus far. Either way, now that's Shepherd has gone down to the surface, you're not going to try anything sneaky up here are you? You wouldn't want me to start cracking heads anymore than you want Shepherd to."

"Sure let me just go and try and disarm all the people who have taken all my guns and armor and I will get right on that." Jar'kannath declared while rolling his top two eyes to emphasize the sarcasm. "I know, I'll get the Krogan that mad giant just blackmailed into following him to help me. Oh no wait, they're all disarmed as well."

"Don't get smart with me tough guy." Jack pressed, "A lot of people would get mighty suspicious of just how quickly you've had a change of heart on this whole slavery bit."

"Fair point I guess." The captain said waving her down. "On the one hand it's not like you all have given me much choice on the matter. You've got a gun to my head and there's no denying that. On the other hand I am increasingly convinced that I'm not actually going to get paid for all my hard work I did on this whole raid and that just pisses me off. So even if I could re-enslave all of you, at this point, I think it would actually be better to just let you all loose on Torfan and sit up here laughing my ass off as you all raise hell down there.

"Furthermore." The captain continued, "If I'm not going to get paid then I'm a dead man walking regardless. This raid was expensive, I'm a month behind on paying my crew already. Hiring the Krogan cost me a few loans to some very unpleasant warlords out in the Terminus, and I still owe Okeer about another ten thousand credits as is. If I can't pay my crew soon they're going to hang me. If I can't pay the Krogan they're going to hang me with my own entrails. If I can't repay the warlords they're going to feed my legs into a meat grinder and then hang what's left of me. At this point my only hope of coming out of this alive is to put together that pirate fleet that Shepherd wants to use to jump start his revolution. Hopefully enough guns gathered together will give the Krogan and warlords pause for thought before they come after me. And then I can gather the loot I need from the remains of your uprising to fully pay them all off."

"Awe." Jack cooed, "You're almost kind of cute when you're desperate like this. Don't worry your pretty little head. Stick with Shepherd and me and we will do our best to keep your neck intact. You really think the other captains will go for it then?"

"They should be in a similar position to me. I'll make sure Shepherd gets his chance to make his speil to them, and then I'll make sure they all vote in the right direction on this. You can count on me."

"Good to hear." Jack approved. "It will be better to see. Come on. We've both got work to do."

* * *

T-32 hours

Shepherd felt surprising calm as he drifted through space alongside the waste and refuse released by the Shadow's Glory as it settled into orbit. Tali seemed to have stopped screaming, taken in by the wonder of the unfiltered sight of the star system. Torfan's blue sun burned softly in the distance bathing the gas giant the pirate base orbited in a hazy white light that reflected off its methane rich atmosphere. Distant as it was, the star appeared as but a single blazing light in the midst of the great outer arm of the milky way spread out behind it. A diamond amidst a great crown of stars. The only other identifiable light that matched the sun's glory, was the great bleeding rift that seemed to sit on the other side of the galaxy. In truth the thousand light year wide blazing nebula of burning stars actually sat somewhere between Torfan and the galactic core, tens of thousands of lightyears distance and yet still strangely visible even now. It was all a humbling sight.

Shepherd's heart rate had slowed to a crawl as he slowly made his way towards the planet. No doubt it was the sound of the slowing beats that had put Tali in a panic until Shepherd had moved enough to assure her he wasn't dead yet. Though he still wasn't certain if it had been him or the sight of the system in all its glory that had finally silenced and calmed her down. Truth be told, his heart slowing down had taken Shepherd by surprise as well. It was a very odd thing, not fully understanding just how it was that his own body worked.

His limbs had gone mostly ridgid as his skin tightened to hold the air in his lungs and keep it dissolved in his blood. The skin on his face had turned black as it deflected the increased radiation he was exposed to in space. His diaphragm, or at least the muscles that did the work of a normal person's diaphragm, had shifted in how it contracted. It now pushed the air in his lungs from one to the other through his third lung and its ludicrously complicated network of filters, scrubbing the carbon dioxide his body produced free of carbon and cycling the oxygen back into his body. Functioning as a kind of biological rebreather as he knew it would, but it was still a very strange feeling. Stranger still, he hadn't had to consciously think about doing any of it, and he knew that he could consciously decide to stop, return to normal breathing, and essentially kill himself here and now. And that knowledge in no way interfered with his body's simple automatic alterations it had undergone to keep him alive. Shepherd had to admit, whoever it was that built him, they had done a damn good job. Now why exactly that person decided they needed to make sure that Shepherd would have little trouble living in the cold depths of space on his own and unprotected for potentially hours on end, was another question entirely.

If anything could be said to keep Shepherd up at night it was thoughts like that. It didn't take a genius to realize he was the final product of some massively overfunded super soldier program. But there were a few things about that line of reasoning that never quite added up to Shepherd. He was simply too uncontrollable. An uncontrollable super soldier was a thing certain to end in tears for everyone involved. And not just from the possibility of a coup, uprising or rogue soldiers going on rampages. The military required discipline and order to exist and Shepherd himself was simply too intelligent for the role of a ground pounder. His mind constantly sought solutions to the problems he saw around him, his own confidence in himself lead him to naturally question and doubt the decisions of others. The fact that his predictions of disaster seemed to consistently prove true, only reinforced his certainly that most of the galaxy would be much better off under his influence if not his outright control. The further fact that he could and was in the process of subverting galactic rule served as evidence that he was a dangerous creation.

He was an artificial conqueror. A vat grown Napoleon or Genghis Khan. His capabilities as a warrior and a general were undeniable but if he honest with himself, unless he served under someone as capable as himself, then for the good of the army he served he would have to usurp them. This was not the kind of thing one would normally want out of a super soldier program. Well whatever he had originally been made for, he knew what it was he needed to do now.

Around him the collective debris released by the pirate fleet began to either settle into orbit, or descend towards the planet. Meanwhile the first transports began their flights away from the pirate ships towards the ground as they unloaded their living cargo. Together, this created the maximum amount of interference for the sensors on the planet below, this was the perfect chance to make his own descent undetected.

With a thought, Shepherd sent electric signals flying down his nerves to the biotic nodes that formed in him some six years early. The element zero within him reacted to the stimulus and generated a mass effect field around him, bent to his will and shaped by his thoughts. Most would need to move physically to properly activate their nerves, but Shepherd had never known such restrictions. His nerves responded as he wished without question, and in a moment the effect he desired formed. A bit in front of him, and a bit behind, the mass effect field he created pulled at the fabric of spacetime, curving space itself and generating a vortex of gravity. His momentum already carrying him forward, he was pulled in by the singularity, but he moved quickly enough to instead slip around it and slingshot out the other side at a even greater speed.

Shepherd repeated this maneuver three more times. By the third, he was pulling at least a G and a half as he shot past the warp in spacetime. He was also now properly angled towards the planet and his chosen landing spot. Needing no further change to his direction, Shepherd surrounded himself in a mass effect field and reduced his own mass to greatly increase his velocity.

With no further sensation of force beyond the growing tug of the world beneath, it was hard to judge his actual speed as began his steep descent. Shepherd would've guessed that it was somewhere around twice the speed of sound in a standard atmosphere. All he could fly by was just how much distance between himself and Torfan remained. He held his course until he was about ten kilometers off the ground and finally starting to meet some real resistance from the thin atmosphere. Shepherd restored his mass and began bleeding off speed. The air pressure increased, and he no longer needed to hold his own skin so tight. He twisted his body out to maximise his wind resistance, but turned away from the approaching ground out of some concern for Tali's mental health. By the sound of air, for a lack of a better term, rushing past his head, he had a much better sense of his own speed and reacted accordingly.

About two kilometers from the ground, he began to flatten spacetime around himself to lessen the effect of the moon's gravity, while again reducing his mass so the air around him could more effectively resist him. Thus he greatly lowered his terminal velocity and dropped his speed. About five hundred meters above the ground, he began forming singularities behind him to start actively pulling him upward. Ten meters off the ground, he restored his mass and twisted about to land feet first a little less than a second later. He bent his knees with the impact, and defused the shock through his body.

As he straightened to his full height he took stock of his passenger strapped to his chest. Tali was trembling, and he could faintly hear her yelling again. Luckily she had shut off the speakers on her helmet, how considerate of her. Her suit was still intact and Shepherd saw no signs of injury on her, though it was hard to judge with her suit still on. He was a bit worried about how fast she was breathing. Hyperventilation was a usual sign of panic, so it was to be expected he supposed, but she did have a limited supply of air. They had linked a forty five minute tank of air to her suit, and the whole trip had only taken about twenty minutes, but he would feel better about her once he got her inside the base and she could breathe properly. To that end, Shepherd began running in the direction of one of smaller spaceports on Torfan, about three kilometers away.

Tali had been quite the unexpected boon. Her technical knowledge had proven invaluable, and Shepherd was certain that she would continue to impress in the days and weeks to come. Beyond that though she possessed qualities even more valuable than her cyber warfare abilities.

In many respects she was about what he might have expected from a Quarian. She was keenly aware of her people's plight and the potentially vital role she might play in preserving them. But she also was plainly quite young and inexperienced. She had a kind of sheltered hardness to herself, if that made any sense. That was perhaps to be expected. The only other Zorah nar Rayya Shepherd had heard of was admiral Rael'Zorah. That marked Tali as the only daughter of an old and well respected family line, her father was not the first or even third Zorah to hold the rank of admiral, her's was the closest thing one could find to an elite family in the migrant fleet.

Such a heritage came with its own challenges and privileges. Her family had clearly done all it could to protect her. But the migrant fleet could not tolerate outright naivety and the result was that she had been mechanically prepare for combat and violence but not mentally. Hense her sheltered hardness.

She had killed for the first time in the armory, and she was struggling to come to terms with it. But she hadn't hesitated to pull the trigger as so many others had when they found themselves face to face with men trying to kill them on the way to the armory. Her training had driven her to do what she had to, even before her mind had processed what was coming. Afterwards she had suppressed her raw emotions under the needs of the moment so she could deal with it later. For the next few nights she might wake up in a cold sweat, crying or screaming but she would get over it, Shepherd was certain. There was beyond doubt a core of steel in this girl, one that would see her through this challenge and if left to her own devices, eventually see her captaining her own ship in the fleet.

She probably wouldn't make admiral, a position as much political as it was tactical. Tali struck Shepherd as a person a bit to technical for political life. She was too eager to get to grips with the problems in front of her, too concerned with efficiency over morality and probably politeness as well. She was the kind of leader who would step on people's fingers to get what needed to be done, done. An invaluable subordinate, a terrible diplomat. Besides that, Quarians were well aware that nepotism, as one of the three great vices of bureaucracy, was one of the best ways to destroy the creativity and initiative that the migrant fleet needed to survive. Furthermore, it was a vice the Quarians were uniquely exposed to, thanks to their strong sense of responsibility to their people and the tight nit nature of life on a liveship. While the Zorahs had produced an admiral every three generations or so since before the fall of Rannoch, neither they nor anyone else had ever had one two generations in a row. Of course, all that was assuming she continued to progress on her own, Shepherd had no intentions of leaving her to wallow as just a ship captain. By the time he was done with her, she would go from completing her pilgrimage to commanding the Quarian specially forces within two years at most, and he would see her on the Admiralty board within a decade.

Before long Shepherd found himself quickly approaching one of the starports. His eyes telescoped in and focused on the still slightly distant structure, but he saw them plain as day. The outer security cameras were cycling on and off in the previously agreed signal that the outer security system had been compromised by the team of cyber security turned warfare experts Tali had trained up on the ship. Shepherd put on an extra burst of speed to reach the outer airlock as quickly as possible. The airlock cycled open he approached, allowing him to enter. As the chamber sealed and pressurized, Shepherd tasted the air to confirm he wasn't being gassed before he finally breathed in for the first time in twenty six minutes exactly. The inner door opened and Shepherd entered unopposed. Knowing that the security system wouldn't track his progress, Shepherd kept his cloaking field inactive for now to conserve power. Instead he relied on his enhanced sense of hearing to forwarn him of approaching pirates, as he made his way quickly through the port. Fortunately most of the base personal were busy elsewhere unloading and inspecting the incoming shipments.

Tali most important feature to Shepherd however, wasn't her skills or her potential to grow even more skilled, but her surprising strength of will. Tali had actively resisted his attempts at driving her forward and had argued against what he was doing in fighting the Batarians. This was no small feat. During the eight years the Council and the Alliance had conspired to deny him from his true passions of military theory and weapon design, Shepherd had instead turned his attention to studying the psychology and culture of the various races of the galaxy. While he was the most practiced at manipulating humans, a Quarian shouldn't be so resistant to his charms.

Shepherd was by his nature the epitome of the unknown. He was not only something that no one ever expected to encounter, but something that most people don't believe even could exist. In the presence of the unexpected, people rely on their imagination to provide the information that their physical sense cannot and to prepare themselves for what could happen and what they can do. Fear invents visions of the worst possible outcomes to brace the individual for the worst, while hope grants people an idea of an optimal outcome that they can work towards. When confronted with Shepherd's overwhelming physical power and ability it is natural for people to assume the worst, and quickly realize that if Shepherd sought their lives then they were doomed. This meant that whenever Shepherd instead dealt with people kindly and magnanimously he not only relieved them of the greatest fears but also gave them hope that by following him their own welfare would advance.

This effect had already reproduced itself amongst not only the captured humans but also the pirates as well. The captured slaves had had their lives torn away from them. Their minds were filled with visions of all that they would suffer at the hands of the Batarians for decades to come and the ignoble death that surely awaited them. Shepherd gave them hope not only of escaping from this awful fate, but of taking control of their lives back from the random and chaotic universe that had so betrayed them. The pirates likewise had already resigned themselves to dying at Shepherd's hands, when he offered them a chance to work for him instead, he gave them not only a means of escaping certain death, but a means at striking back at the Hegemony that had abandoned them. In both cases Shepherd not only now represented salvation to his followers, but empowerment. Now Shepherd was the basis on which these people built their view of the world itself, he was the means by which they would take back control, he was their savior, and they were now his fanatics.

There were, generally speaking, three ways to motivate people. This was true not only of humans but of all the Citadel races as well. In fact the main reason why the Citadel system even worked at all was thanks to this common system of motivation. Firstly one could convince people that acting in such a way advanced their own interests. Usually this was accomplished by giving people money which almost everyone considered useful and beneficial, but also offering someone emotional or moral fulfillment likewise could satisfy them. The second was to instil fear in people, bypassing their sense of rationality and getting them to lash out on instinct and emotion. The third, and by far the most powerful, was to instil in a person a sense of duty and responsibility to uphold and protect some concept, person or system. This was usually accomplished by altering a person very sense of identity, making them a small part of a larger whole. Thus the good of and survival of the larger system becomes synonymous with the good and survival of the individual, and even more important than the individual in many ways. While a person can be easily convinced to fight and kill out of fear or for a paycheck, people were usually only willing to die in the support of the greater whole. This was the essence of fanaticism, when a person comes to see something as even more important than their own lives.

All armies were built on such fanaticism. The soldier is the ultimate form of the citizen. A person so convinced of the rightness and justice of their own culture and civilization that they are willing to not only die in the defence of it but also kill to advance its interests at the expense of other states. A soldier does not need to be convinced that going to a place and killing another man there will somehow make them better off or safer. A soldier has already agreed that the nation's advancement and defence is the same as their own advancement and protection. Soldiers can act with unity and speed, striking with determination and a willingness to give up their own lives to destroy their enemies and protect their fellows, all thanks to this belief that the cause they fight for is more important than their own survival.

Shepherd needed this fanaticism to not only destroy the Batarian system of slavery but also complete his further goals of reforming and improving the galaxy. He had to take advantage of the just cause Elysium offered him, so he didn't have the time to build up a culture or system of beliefs that men could analyze and decide if they were willing to give their lives in support of. Instead he had to make himself into a symbol that others could believe in and build their lives on. He had to create a cult of personality to instil in others the fanaticism he needed to change the galaxy. This however, meant that every true believer he made out of the men under him was one less man he could rely on for any kind of advice.

The fanatic by their very nature cannot question the subject of their devotion. To doubt their convictions is to abandon not only their greatest strength but to throw away the entire basis of their identity. While such deep personal introspection often makes them into a better person, it would destroy their use as a soldier, and thus is something Shepherd could not allow.

As Shepherd considered these things, they came to the end of starport and entered the great underground highway that connected the inner base with its outer satellites. Fortunately the highway had little need for much lighting, relying instead on the headlamps of the transports that used it. Thus Shepherd could easily make his way down it, still only using his cloak sparingly when convoys of trucks passed him as he kept to the shadows along the long roadway.

In Shepherd's life he had only known four people that didn't instinctively submit to him and could actively disagree with him as Tali had. The first was his adopted mother, Sara Shepherd. She had the unique advantage of not seeing the gigantic killing machine that he was whenever she saw him. She only saw the small vulnerable child she had pulled from the depths of space all those years ago. The second was Spectre Valern, which was to be expected. If the Citadel Spectres couldn't resist a little manipulation and intimidation then the galaxy would be in a much worse place than it was.

The third was a special case. Miranda Lawson was one of the few designer children rescued by Spectre Valern who had actually lived with her supposed father for some time before she was brought to the research station. While she had lived a physically comfortable or even luxurious life, especially compared to the 'jocks' the would be child soldiers like Jack who had suffered greatly at the hands of Cerberus, she instead had been subjected to tremendous emotional abuse living with a man who made it clear in no uncertain terms that he had bought her, owned her and could and would replace her if she failed to live up to his standards. Consequently Miranda was ferociously determined to live her own life and would bend knee to no one ever again. It was a tremendously powerful part of her character that Shepherd respected too much to ever willingly subvert, no matter how frustrating it made her at times.

The fourth, Jack, was actually partially Shepherd's own fault. When he was younger and still getting used to the full extent of control he could exert on other people he had essentially experimented on Jack while trying to work out his full technique. He had pressed her to far and had badly hurt their relationship as a result. It had been weeks before she was willing to even speak to him again and nearly half a year before he had convinced her to forgive him. As a result, Jack now had her back up around him, at least subconsciously so. She still agreed with him mostly, but any attempt to force her into line was certain to result in her blowing up at him.

Unlike others that Shepherd could browbeat or inspire and thus lead easily, those four and now Tali could only be persuaded by appealing to their own interests and good. Or by frightening them, but Shepherd considered such techniques inferior and uncontrollable. They could question and challenge him, they looked at problems from a different direction then he did, making them ideal advisors. Not that Shepherd often needed advice, he was probably one of the top ten smartest people in the galaxy thanks to his enlarged brain and lightning fast nervous system. But the fact that Shepherd had to appeal to their own interests to persuade them meant that none of Shepherd's plans or intentions could be motivated solely by his own interest, since they would have to likewise appeal to his advisors and their concerns. In this manner, Tali and Jack would keep Shepherd honest and prevent him from becoming as bad a tyrant as those he sought to replace.

This was especially important since Miranda had refused to come with Jack and Shepherd to overthrow the Hegemony, a fact that still rather rankled him. Shepherd's inability to persuade Miranda to help him would've worried him more if her objections had stemmed from his methods or intentions, but rather Miranda had simply doubted his ability to pull it off. She doubted him. And that stung. More than it should. Obviously a Citadel Councilor and an Alliance Navy Captain couldn't be seen to cooperate and support a soon to be known terrorist and revolutionary, which ruled out his mother and Valern as potential advisors and had left him with only Miranda and Jack. And Miranda had for some reason believed that an entire civilization of billions of people could possibly overcome one over glorified science experiment with an axe to grind. But now he had Tali to take her place which was good.

At last Shepherd and Tali came to the main base on Torfan. Here underground, it appeared as little more than an alcove in the highway wrapping around it. An open space large enough for three of the large trucks to pull up to it without impeding traffic heading up or down the road. Large bay doors opened out into the loading bay where the trucks could back up to the wall, with a smaller door off to the side where people could walk in and out on ground level. One of the loading bays was opened up to receive a truck backing up to it, so Shepherd slid between them with his cloak active, and climbed up into the base without a sound or any sign the workers ready to unload the truck had noticed them.

Crossing the loading bay quickly, Shepherd paused briefly to examine one of the large scanners near the entrance, ready to reexamine the incoming cargo for anything the inspectors top side might have missed. The design was fairly standard, and older version of such scanners used at starports around the galaxy to check incoming cargo against its declared manifest. But it was just one of three in this loading bay alone. According to the pirates, the base's bureaucrats would use at least seven or eight such loading bays to bring in cargo on this scale. Dealing with each individual scanner would be time consuming, hopefully all of the scanners linked into a common server system further in, from which all the scanners could be appropriately sabotaged. His curiosity satisfied, Shepherd reached the far side of the loading bay, and slipped through a door out into the wider base.

Tali butted her head against his chest to get his attention. Shepherd held up a finger to her face for a moment as he checked the surrounding corridors for signs of potential interruptions before allowing her to continue. The speakers on her helmet came to life with a slight pop of static, but they were obviously set to their near lowest volume setting and thus made very little noise.

"Hold here a moment," Tali instructed as her fingers danced across her omnitool, "I'm accessing their inner network now. Security is a bit tighter than expected, but not much to speak off. Alright I'm in."

"Can you access the scanners from here?" Shepherd asked.

"No," Tali denied. "What I'm accessing is basically the local extranet, for visitors and businessmen here. All the technical systems will be closed off. Probably connected to the local security stations. But I should be able to use the more accessible broadcasts to track down those major stations. Just give me a minute to…. Oh."

"Problem?"

"Yeah," Tali admitted as she turned her omnitool so that Shepherd could see it as well, along with the 3D image of various corridors branching off in all directions. "I'm running an auto-map of this place while I search for any technical blueprints or something, but the inner base might be a lot more complicated than I had assumed. I could take me quite some time to track down one of those security stations."

"Our time is limited Tali," Shepherd chided, "We only have about another four hours or so until Jar'kannath has to start bringing our people down here."

"I know, I know." Tali placated while her fingers danced along the omnitool. "But there's only so much I can do, it's not like they've posted a map of the place on here."

Shepherd took a breath to calm himself for a moment. His vision became more erratic as he ignored the input from his eyes and turned all of his conscious attention to his ears and the vibrations in his feet. There was the thrum of ventilation above him. The murmurs of fearful slaves from the cargo hold behind him. The wine of electric forklifts as they carted around crates of human life. The vibrations of erratic footsteps from a dozen different directions as people moved about on this floor and the one above and beneath. And just there, the clash of foot falls in unison. Men marching down a corridor some forty meters to the north west. Shepherd locked on to those marching beats, and tuned everything else back into the background of his senses, then he took off in the direction of his quarry.

"Shepherd!" Tali squealed as he started moving. "Where are we going?"

"To ask for directions." Shepherd answered.

After a few turns and slipping past a handful of individuals walking the corridors, merchants from the look of them, and not necessarily knowledgeable of Shepherd's desired target, Shepherd found his prey. A group of about eleven men, marching down the hallway, arms swinging, guns proudly displayed, chests outs and all the swagger they could muster shown with every step to intimidate those around them out of their way. Their armor and weapons came from a dozen different sources, but each man had a single red stripe across their shoulder. Torfan's security forces, out and about to stare down the slaves and lord their authority over the pirates on shore leave to follow. The exact sort of men who would know exactly where a security station could be found.

Shepherd stalked the group silently for a time, and when they found themselves in a more deserted hallway, the group's discipline promptly slipped. The men now slouched and fell out of step, one man fell a bit behind the group, as he drew a canteen to his lips and quenched his thirst. Glancing down a side corridor to ensure it was likewise uninhabited, Shepherd took an quick lunge towards then man, hooked a hand around his throat, and dragged him back and to the side. His absence went unnoticed by his peers, and the poor Batarian could hardly breath, let alone cry for help. Shepherd ducked into the side passage, and pressed the man against the wall, his legs dangling in the air as Shepherd held him at head height. Shepherd stepped in to bring the man within the reach of his stealth field, rendering the man invisible to outside observers and giving the bewildered security enforcer a full view of Shepherd commanding glare that now all but burrowed into the man's soul.

"If you enjoy breathing," Shepherd began easing off the Batarian's windpipe just enough that he wouldn't pass out and might be able to squeak out an answer. "You will point the way to the nearest security station."

"All Seer save me!" The man croaked as Shepherd grabbed one of his hands and broke two his fingers with a quick snap. "Yes! I can show you the way! Down that way and further in!"

The batarian gestured down the way they had come with his yet unbroken hand. Shepherd relieved the man of his terminator assault rifle and phalanx pistol. Then he re-shifted his hand to hold both of the Batarian's arms and kept them pressed against his throat to hold him against Shepherd's side. With his prisoner secured Shepherd moved once more, making his way in the direction indicated, stopping at cross ways to let his guide indicate an appropriate new direction. Shortly, they reach an unmarked section of hallway which the Batarian insisted held a hidden door into a secret compartment. Tali nodded in conformation as she scanned the wall with her omnitool and began to access the door's remote control.

Shepherd promptly broke the security guard's neck and after checking that the coast was clear, leaned the man against the wall, propped up in such a way as to appear merely lazing about. He then began to unstrap Tali from her current predicament and set her on the ground once more. Shepherd gave her one of his stealth field generators rendering her invisible and making him slightly less so. He nodded exaggeratedly at Tali, his more sweeping motions more easily detectable with one less generator, and she taking it as a sign, opened the door for him.

Within Shepherd saw eight figures all wearing armor marked by the blue stripe of Torfan's security, one of them had an additional red stripe no doubt signifying his higher command. The eight figures were all paying attention to a wall of computer monitors, clear crystal glass screens through which holograms were projected outward by the circuitry carved into the glass. Six men stood at the screens themselves each watching over a specific area under their command, while two others stood in the middle of the room to gain a more broad perspective and monitored the men at the monitors. One man near the wall turned and looked around at the sound of the opening door. To his perspective, Shepherd seemed a great dark mass blocking out the doorway, like a shadow standing upright, or a great swarm of insects flying so close together that they couldn't be seen through. His mouth opened in confusion, but he had not said a word. Shepherd drew a pair of shotguns from his back, the weapons extending outward from their reduced inactive size, and entered the room.

Shepherd approached the two men in the center of the room, he foot falls still silent, his form still shadowy and indistinct, his pace measured. He looked like a great cloud of black smoke broiling into the room. His only observer was still dumbstruck when Shepherd finally attacked. The guns he had drawn had come from the pirate armory and were each equipped with a shoulder strap incase they had to be used by an unarmored pirate in an emergency. Shepherd held them near their centers and allowed the straps to hang loose. With a casual motion he flipped the straps over the heads of the two soldiers in front of him, and with a deft spin of his fingers, he looped the straps around their necks and formed a small knot where they intertwined at the base of each man's skull. Each Batarian had only enough time to recognize the feeling of nylon on their skin before Shepherd yanked them back and upwards. The sudden speed snapped their heads forwards and pulled their skulls from the base of their spines, snapping the necks and throats at once. The men were left paralyzed and suffocating as they hung limp before Shepherd dying and helpless.

The sudden motion finally broke the effect of Shepherd's remaining stealth field and he now stood fully visible in the middle of the room. The sight of the two deaths and the sudden appearance of this great murderous giant in their midst left the one man looking at Shepherd all but choking as he desperately tried to cry out in alarm. Three other men at the consoles started to turn around at the sound of snapping bones behind them, the last two flinched, hunched up and looked down by mistake. Shepherd was already moving as he studied his prey, with a casual swing he threw the two soon to be corpses at the four men starting to see him and pounced on the two yet to turn. The first body struck the man who had seen him enter square in the chest and knocked the air from his lungs. The second body, given a wider throwing arc, splayed out horizontally in the air and crashed into the three other men, driving them into the wall. One of them had his head pushed throw one of the glass monitors, and tore his throat out on the glass, the other two were merely stunned.

Shepherd grabbed his twin shotguns by the barrels and bore down on the two remaining upright men. Swinging hard and down ward, he brought the pistol grips of each gun hard into the temples of the two security officers. Their skulls shattered under the blows, fragments of bone were driven into their brains, their capacity for thought destroyed they slumped to the ground and were left for their brains to drown in their own blood. Shepherd moved quickly down the line, striking now with the butts of his guns against the throat and forehead of the two surviving men who had been hit by the second corpse. Another skull broked under his assault as the man's head was whipped back quickly enough to also break his spine, and the second man was left grasping at his collapsed windpipe.

The man who had actually seen Shepherd enter tried to stumble up and roll past the giant that had now slane his comrades. Hoping to get enough room to turn and fire upon the monster that was about to kill him. But the man underestimated Shepherd's reach, and he caught a snap kick to his face that left his jaw and lowers skull shattered, and his brain concussed and unconscious.

Just then Shepherd heard the telltale click of an unfolding weapon behind him. A ninth soldier, an older human with the tattoos of a terminus pirate gang on his face, standing in the corner of the room, a blind spot to where Shepherd had entered from. The man had the look of wild panic in his eyes overwhelmed by the brutality and speed of Shepherd's work. Nonetheless, his training had served him well enough, and he had had enough sense to bring his rifle out and up to face the giant.

Shepherd cursed himself for failing to properly sweep the room when he entered, and allowed the momentum of his kick to spin his body around to face the new threat. The man and the world around him seemed to move in slow motion to Shepherd. He knew his shields could take the salvo that was coming for him, but he prefered to minimize the noise of his assault, this was a stealth mission after all. Shepherd whipped one his arms around and sent one his guns flying through the air at his target. The man flinched at the sight of the projectile, and blocked it with his gun, deflecting the impact enough to save his life, but allowing himself to be rocked back by the impact. Shepherd gave the man no second chance, crossing the distance in all but a blink of any eye, Shepherd brought his second gun down and once more drove it's pistol grip into the top of the man's skull.

As the ninth man slumped to the floor dead from his broken skull, Tali's invisible form peaked around the door and entered, bringing the body of the dead patrolman with her. Her eyes swept over the carnage left by his passing but made no comment beyond a single grimace. She closed the door behind her and set to work at the surviving consoles.

"I guess you're done persuading people to join you huh?" Tali questioned as she got to work. "You didn't even give them a chance to give up."

"I can't convince everyone I come across to drop everything and follow me." Shepherd responded as he began to search the bodies of the fallen security officers, checking their weapons and equipment. "I might have been able to intimidate them into surrender after I killed one or two of them, but I don't exactly have plenty of places to start stashing prisoners."

"You just convinced a krogan warlord to follow your mad scheme." Tali pressed, "How much harder would it be to talk all these people around? They're all in the same boat the pirates are right? Most everyone here is going to die when the Alliance comes looking to rescue their people."

"Truth be told not to difficult." Shepherd admitted. "You're right, it would be in their best interest to work with me against the Hegemony. It would take some time, and a lot could go wrong, but I think I could do it. I never really pressed my ability to persuade people to its limit growing up, so I don't know how far I can really press it. But there is a limit to everything."

"But if you could solve this peacefully," Tali said a little hesitantly. "Aren't you deliberately deciding to murder these people by attacking them regardless?"

"I am." Shepherd accepted as he got to work, he had found a silencer attachment to the pistol used by the apparently leader of this squadron. He took the gun and pressed it to the chest of one of the dead bodies that he was holding up as if it was facing the doorway. He then shot the corpse three times splattering blood against the walls with a few silent coughs from the weapon. He dropped the body to the ground as if it had been knocked off its feet by the hits and then moved on to the next.

"But why though?" Tali asked after she flinched slightly at the sound of the shots going off. "Why not take this place as your own as well?"

"Sooner or later persuasion would no longer work." Shepherd explained as he created the false impression that a firefight had broken out in the room. "I won't be able to convince people to act too far against their own self interests. While what I am planning will help the pirates and other rejects of Batarian society, as well as the culture as a whole, it will be to the considerable detriment of most of the rule class and upper middle class as well. They will resist me and what I am doing. Plus culture as a whole resists any kind of change, since it will threaten an already functional system and endanger the prosperity that people already possess. A society must be broke before it can be fixed. A certain amount of chaos must be introduced to the system to make real change necessary and acceptable. Thus in the end it will come down to violence."

"Not necessarily." Tali denied as her hands danced on the along the computer console and she did her best to ignore the blood splatter that occasional struck the screens or that she felt drip against her suit. "If you can demonstrate that structure of society is insufficient to the task, people will accept change to deal with the issue. Chaos need not be violence."

"The disruption of social order on mass scale will produce violence regardless of the origin of chaos." Shepherd declared as he began to press down on the chests of the dead victims, pumping their hearts and pushing blood out through their wounds as if they had been shot while still alive. "With 1.25 trillion credits I could buy every slave in batarian space and free them. With 2.75 trillion credits I could bankrupt and buy out every industry that employs them and reform them to work without slaves. With 6.62 trillion credits I could bribe, subvert, black mail, and reform the necessary number of nobles needed to change the legal status of slaves throughout the hegemony. In all these cases, 19.86 billion Batarians would be added to the existing caste system.

"Everyone of those Batarians would have to be evaluated by the priests of the Pillar of Foresight to determine which area of society they are best suited to be reintroduced to. 19.86 billion Batarians suddenly added to the workforce, competing for jobs against every other Batarian alive. And since most regular Batarians are working jobs they lack the talent for thanks to the inefficiency inherent in a caste system, whereas the slaves will exclusively be driven into industries they can actually succeed in a lot of regular Batarians are probably going to lose their jobs, pushed out of the market by the freed slaves. The resulting social pressure and backlash will lead to violence on a mass scale. The slaves will likely be forced into roles as second class citizens as people fight to defend what little they already have. To solve that crisis I will need to be able to act unilaterally and immediately. I will need overwhelming force that can be brought to bear at a moments notice without anyone able to gainsay me or object to what must be done. I will need to have military power.

"The greater the alteration to society the greater the chaos will be needed to initiate that change and the more chaos will be created by that change. Chaos is necessary to initiate revolution, but the destruction of chaos and the formation of new order is necessary to complete a revolution. The goal of a revolutionary therefore must be to limit the spread of chaos as much as possible. The simplest solution is usually the best, and the simplest solution to any political problem is force."

"If your goal is ultimately to limit the destruction that you cause," Tali argued, "Then I ask again, why do the people on Torfan need to die if you could end the conflict here peacefully?"

"Every time I directly intervene," Shepherd explained, as he retrieved the shotgun he had thrown at the last soldier having finished doctoring the crime scene. "Whether by preventing a conflict or by overwhelming an enemy with my own strength I deny my soldiers a chance to test themselves and improve their combat ability. Eventually they will have to fight and they won't be able to win just with a 'can do' attitude and a few weeks of training, they will need real experience and veterency. Torfan is an ideal proving ground. The enemy is competent but over confident, spread out and isolated with exploitable flaws in their communications. The people are desperate, hemmed in and afraid. Once I show them that victory is possible their fear will turn to anger, and burning fury that, if properly directed, will overpower the defenders. As it is written: 'Throw your soldiers into position once there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight.' If you want to see how a man can really fight, first lock him in a cage. The surge in moral from this initial victory at impossible odds will inspire them to throw themselves into training and will carry them through harder battles yet to come.

"I do not need Torfan." Shepherd concluded, "And its sacrifice furthers my goals. The lives will kill hear now are lives that will not have to be lost later and at a greater price. It is a grimm mathematics to be sure, but it is the only way forward that I see."

Tali fell silent after that as she continued to tunnel her way through Tofan's security systems. Strangely, she did not seem saddened or disturbed by Shepherd's declaration, but remained focussed on the programs dancing before her. Shepherd suspected, that truth be told Tali didn't actually care for the lives of these slaves, smugglers and merchants of suffering and death, but rather had used the conversation to try and gauge him in some way. He appreciated it either way. It was what he wanted her here for, to challenge him and make him explain and defend his reasoning. Being right was all well and good, but it didn't really matter if one couldn't explain why they were right and convince someone else that they were wrong.

Shepherd turned his attention from her and back to the gun he had retrieved. The shotgun refused to retract to it's more compact size, and now that he could study it in detail, Shepherd saw that the barrel had been bent by his throw. He quickly examined the other weapon he had used to kill in this room and fortunate found that it was still in good shape and usable. Shepherd grunted in annoyance at the damaged weapon and swapped for an assault rifle carried by one of the security guards.

"I need to get a dedicated melee weapon." Shepherd mused to himself.

"What?!" Tali exclaimed as she stopped working and turned to face the giant.

"Like a broad sword or a warhammer," Shepherd explained, "Something I can get some proper momentum behind for taking down larger targets."

"A sword." Tali stated in disbelief.

"Maybe a claymore," Shepherd pondered, "Or a glaive, I've always liked glaives they're like 'sword pikes' very good design you know."

"In this day and age?" Tali questioned. "You do know melee combat is almost completely useless in modern warfare. Ancestors, it was almost completely useless in olden days too. Your people have had access to guns for like 800 years right?"

"That is a mindset steeped in tradition," Shepherd retorted, "Blind to the innovations of the modern era. Orbital insertions, stealth transports, shielded personnel carriers have all shrunk the battlefield considerably compared to the age of field artillery and tracked tanks. In rough terrain, urban combat, or in boarding actions, a well armored and shielded soldier with a jet pack or the vanguard suit of biotic powers can easily close the distance to engage their enemies at point blank ranges."

"Or, you could give that same soldier a shotgun," Tali pressed, "And he could do that same thing, more quickly and wouldn't be completely useless if the enemy took a few steps backwards. It's not a question of is it possible, but whether or not its efficient. Which it isn't. Guns can do more damage, more quickly, at greater and safer ranges."

"There is more to winning battles than just killing people." Shepherd dismissed, "Shock and awe are the real keys. Convince a man he's already lost and you don't have to fight him at all. The mind isn't evolved enough to process death from a distance. We are all the descendents of prey animals, so it's hard wired into our subconscious that death comes from things up close. It's one thing to see three men fall over because a sniper has you zeroed in, it's quite another to see a man get ripped in half by a scream psychopath with battleaxe. Besides, my own body is optimized for close quarter fighting where I can not only deal the most damage but put my greater strength and reflexes to their best use."

"You're strength would be put to best use," Tali insisted, "Carrying some kind of heavy weapon systems. Like the shoulder mounted miniguns and portable howitzers that the Elcor use. Your reflexes would be best used for sniping. And as a general rule, the guy in charge of an army shouldn't be slumming it with the ground pounders in the first place!"

"Portable howitzer….." Shepherd mused deep in thought, though he did catch Tali berating herself under her breath for suggesting more ways he could kill people, "Yes that does make sense. I wonder if there is a way to combine the systems?"

"What like a gun sword?" Tali scoffed.

"No," Shepherd agreed, "The combination leaves both unbalanced and awkward to use plus they are usually restricted to pistol barrels. Traditionally I would rely on a bayonet, but that design stemmed from the fact that guns were originally meant as an anti cavalry tool, so it made sense to turn them into spears. I've seen alternatives to the idea, where they place an axe head on the end of the gun to give it a more anti-infantry use. And King Henry the VIII of England once owned a gun mace of which he was quite fond. Something along those lines perhaps, maybe a combination sniper rifle axepike? We'll put our heads together after this is all done see what we can come up with."

"Oh no!" Tali denied in horror at the very thought, "I'm am putting my foot down right now! I will not help you come up with crazy weapons to kill people with!"

"Oh don't be like that," Shepherd insisted playfully, "It'll be fun! The Alliance and the Council would never let me actually work on any of of the ideas I had for not guns, tanks and warships. The two of us together, we could come up with a whole new generation of wonderful weapons of death and destruction!"

Tali shook her head and turned back to her computer screen. Shortly thereafter, the screen lit up with hopeful new messages that signal Tali's success. She nodded approvingly at the cooperating computer system and called back to Shepherd.

"I we could turn our attention back to the task at hand? I've gotten access to the scanners and am uploading their alter programming now. They should ignore our weapons and equipment and allows all our people in safely."

"Excellent work," Shepherd complimented her.

"We will probably want to monitor the situation from here until all our people have come down." Tali continued, "In case something goes wrong. I should be able to initiate a manual override from here before the inspectors are alerted to the problem."

"That should work." Shepherd agreed. "See if you can access the shift schedule for the security guards in this area. If you can we should make sure that no one else tries to come and use this room until we're done here."

"No problem," Tali affirmed as she got to work. "What's our next step once our people are in?"

"I will sneak you back to the slave pens after we're done here." Shepherd explained, "There you can work safely with our other hackers to expand our control over Torfan's inner systems. Jack and the others will begin distributing weapons amongst the Elysians and organizing them for the fight to come."

"What about you?" Tali asked.

"I've got to meet with the pirate captains eventually and make sure they come round to my point of view." Shepherd continued. "Also I'm going to get to work softening up the defenders for our outbreak. Mostly though, I'm going to convince the governor here that the pirates are planning to betray him. The more animosity between the two I can create, the more likely the pirates will side with us and the more divided their forces will be when the time to act finally comes.

"Oh!" Shepherd added almost as an afterthought, "I'm going to see if I can't jury rig a suit of armor together for my self. Something that will be suitably impressive and inspiring I think. Maybe something brass, or golden. We'll see what they have lying around."

* * *

AN:So this is the first section of the story written from Shepherd's perspective. I'm still not certain if I actually like how it turned out or not. Took me a few goes to get to a place where it doesn't feel like I've contradicted anything about him I've previously established.

This section also deals with some of the Primarch's more advanced biology, which I'm no expert on by any stretch of the imagination, so I ask for your forbearance if it seems like I've deviated from the established lore. I am pretty certain that other Primarchs have gone on exposed space walks before though.

I've decided to take the advice of one reviewer and just upload these whenever I reach a natural stopping place rather than trying to get the whole section done, hence why we still aren't done with Torfan yet.

Let me know what you all think of Shepherd's inner dialog and philosophical musings, as well as the presentation of his character overall.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Trouble in Torfan

Part 3: Double Dealing

T-26 Hours

There was an elegant dance of mutual insult that had to be played during any meeting between Batarian pirates and the officials that profited from them. Technically, pirates were casteless, the absolute bottom scum of Batarian society. Lower even than the slaves they captured and sold. Utterly immoral, useless and rightly universally reviled and hated. They were also necessary to the continued existence of the Hegemony and its established culture. The pirates were fully aware of this, and they soundly and fundamentally rejected the culture that would've left them to rot and die in ignominy and squalor if left to themselves, but also deeply longed for the approval of that culture which had birthed and raised them.

For the officials to accept the pirates as deserving any basic consideration or politeness was antithetical to everything they believed in. But to insult them too openly was to risk the loss of their business and the collapse of the Batarian economy with it. For the pirates, to accept any authority from the Hegemony, to even momentarily appreciate any scraps they threw for them, to give any sign that they wanted anything else than to continue to be free and casteless was to admit that deep down inside they knew what they were doing was selfish and wrong. Consequently, both sides had to at every opportunity, degrade and mock the other in any way just short of outright rudeness. This was mostly accomplished by the Batarian officials trying to organize and control the pirates while extolling the virtue and glory of the civilization they had been exiled from, while the pirates took every chance they could to flaunt any rules put before them while swaggering about in the best stolen loot they had to hand to prove they were doing just fine on their own.

So the governor of Torfan threw an extravagant and lavish dinner party for the assembled pirate captains, full of all the best food, drink, style and wealth that could be imported directly from the heart of the Hegemony itself. While the pirate captains all brought their own bottles of wine or brandy, plates of pastries, or boxes of fine chocolates to add to the feast whether the governor wanted it or not. Some of them came bedecked in fabulous jewelry and stylish clothes as well all of which had been looted from Elysium for the explicit purpose of proving that the captains could get things just as good outside the Hegemony as in it.

The governor set out name cards for each Captain assigning them a seat according to their respective rank, as best as the governor himself could determine anyway, descending from the either side of the governor all the way down the table. The pirates had ignored these placings and organized themselves into various cliques scattered about the table, with the strongest captains congregating on the opposite side of the governor. That rat fink Durrin had even brought his own damn table and set it up to the side of everyone else for his cronies to gather around.

The governor sent for his servants, half of them Asari slaves the other half made up of young Batarian girls, and began to serve the pirates an elegantly prepared and organized three course meal. The pirate captains grabbed and groped the girls as they passed, refused some food, seized extra portions of others, demanded food that was not being offered as part of the feast, or simply starting eating the food they had brought themselves. The governor offered a toast to the success of the raid, which everyone accepted since to do otherwise would be a bit too rude, and then launched into a long winded and utterly pointless speech about all he had done to prepare for their arrival and set up the slave auctions which would make them all so very, very rich. The pirates ignored him and quietly conversed amongst themselves.

Jar'Kannath sat near the center of the grand table and silently studied the assembled forty five other pirate captains, trying to get a read on how the balance of power amongst them had shifted after the raid. The pirates were not formally organized of course. Such a notion was anathema to the very soul of piracy. Each captain here was the lord and master of his own ship, a free man to work and fight however he saw fit. But wherever sentient beings gathered and were occasionally forced to cooperate, some kind of hierarchy soon emerged. Amongst pirates it was largely based around ship size, then by fleet size and lastly by reputation. It was after all unwise to mouth off to someone who could either blast your ship out of existence with little effort, run you down with a pack nipping at your heels to bleed you with a thousand cuts, or would just fly circles around you while they monologue about how great they were and how far ahead they had already planned out the fight.

The upper layers of this hierarchy were dominated by the captains of cruiser sized vessels. Whether light cruisers at only five hundred meters, or heavy cruisers at over seven hundred meters, such ships were able to go toe to toe with most patrol fleets and thus were free dive into even the densest of shipping lanes to search for prey and loot. To captain a cruiser was to join a list kept by the STG and to have one's name known to every Turian captain within hundreds of light years of one's favorite haunts and known territory. Thus there was a certain amount of respect that came with those ships for having spat in the Hierarchy's eyes and lived on to tell about it.

If owning a cruiser was a direct challenge to the Turians then to captain a battlecruiser a ship just shy of dreadnaught size at eight hundred meters in length, was an insult to the primarchs themselves. A captain of such a ship was known to every Turian naval officer in the galaxy. The profiles of their ships were the subjects of extensive training courses at their naval academies as every up and coming officer worked on crafting theories and tactics to bring such infamous pirates to heal. Spectres were more than willing to break cover if it meant putting a round through a captain's head or a bomb in his hold. The STG had whole a team of agents devoted to tracking and hunting for every pirate battlecruiser known to be active, and once one was found acting anywhere outside of the most lawless and devoid regions of the galaxy, a Turian hunter fleet would be dispatched to track it down and kill it dead. More than one primarch had stated his career path by bringing down a pirate battlecruiser. But such feats weren't common, and those captains who worked with such targets on their backs and remained alive and prosperous were truly worthy of the highest respect and cooperation.

A few captains and some Terminus warlords might have the funds needed to acquire a full sized dreadnought, but there were cheaper ways to commit suicide. A battlecruiser might be hounded by the Hierarchy across the galaxy but it could find refuge in the Terminus, Verge or other such regions where Citadel law held little sway. A dreadnought would have no such protection. The last time a warlord had tried to make such a ship for himself the Hierarchy had invaded the Terminus, killed the warlord along with three others who had tried to stop them, brought a dozen worlds to their knees and even besieged the fortress space station Omega itself for almost three hundred days. That had been back before Aria T'loak had taken over Omega, the Turians would probably think twice before trying that one again. But Aria would never offer succor to a fool dumb enough to try and own their own dreadnought.

Jar'Kannath wondered to himself if the Hierarchy would react with such hostility to a pirate acquiring one of those new carrier type ships the Alliance had introduced during the First Contact war. The ships were basically dreadnoughts but carried swarms of fighter craft instead of a heavy spine gun. They were less effective in direct combat than even some of the heavier cruiser designs, but if allowed to keep their distance and keep their strike craft well supported they could inflict a lot of damage in a battle as the humans had proven to the Hierarchy's shagrin. With one of those, and a crew skilled at flying fighter-bombers, and some gunships with boarding crews, a single captain could possibly hunt down and capture multiple trade ships passing through the same system for hefty profits. Jar'Kannath would have to look into that later.

Beyond meer ship size, the ability to maintain the loyalty of more than one crew and curtail the ambition of a subordinate captain without alienating him and earning his spite was also worthy of note and respect. But captains who were able to place their subordinates in charge of their own pirate ships and not have such men strike out on their own at the first opportunity were a rare breed indeed. While pirates were often willing to informally gather and cooperate under the leadership of a respected or feared cruiser or battlecruiser captain, such as this grand fleet that had struck at Elysium, very few pirates maintained any real organized structure. Permanently united fleets with one definite leader were rare and only made up of very small bands, maybe seven or eight ships at the most.

Those more common informal bands were typically rallied by reputation more so than anything else. Pirates known to make major gains at minimal risks were never short on friends. Neither were those known to be able to hit well above their weight class and thus could fight their way out of dangerous situations.

Jar'kannath himself sat at the upper end of the spectrum here on Torfan. As captain of one of the fleets eight light cruisers, he had the right to make his voice and opinion heard when the captains came together to discuss their future plans of actions. He also had a reputation for strategy and audacity, particularly for taking impossible sounding ideas or plans and somehow making them work. While he had no direct subordinates, more than one frigate and destroyer captain would look to him for inspiration in how to act. Furthermore most of the cruiser captains would feel much better about a plan only after he had judged it sound or workable. Interestingly the more ridiculous and audacious the idea the more appealable his approval would make it. While he didn't have the clout or the power to demand that others follow him, those that held the reigns of power would probably be willing to budge a bit on their own plans if it meant getting him to back them.

The real power in the room though was presently divided between three captains. The one closest to the top was no doubt Crazed Soi'fon. A batarian piratess she captained a battlecruiser and kept up a friendly if informal relationship with several of her former crew members who were now also captains of five frigates and three destroyers. While she was not their direct commander, the eight other captains often followed her lead and were certain to come to her aid against all but the most impossible odds. Soi'fon was something of an oddity as a woman captain. Jar'Kannath had nothing personal against the idea, but it was slightly scandalous to see a batarian woman, normally a delicate creature that needed protection and guidance, out here in a man's world of death and violence. He was also nowhere near stupid enough to underestimate the mad woman just because her sex. She was lighting fast with her twin pistols, could out maneuver ships half her size, and had the incredible ability to show up exactly where it was completely impossible for her to be at just the worst time for her to be there.

Her next greatest rival was old man Yamamoto. One of only five human captains in the assembled fleet, he captained the only other battlecruiser. He was a former Alliance rear admiral who had gone rogue after the alliance canceled several major military research projects as a sign of good faith to the Citadel Council after the end of the First Contact war. Yamamoto had stolen the designs for two of those weapon systems and used them to build a battlecruiser unlike any other. While he lacked any direct subordinates and wasn't exactly the greatest strategist in the world, the sheer power wielded by his ship and its experimental armaments was more than enough to get most pirate captains to join up with any idea he threw his weight behind, simply because the firepower he boasted was more than enough to shoot his way out of any problem he faced.

His ship had two major weapon systems that made it so infamous. The first was a powerful heat sink systems that allowed him to equip a triple barrel spine gun. While it would overheat to the point of shutting down after firing less shots than a normal ship could; if it fired at its fastest pace, even the shields of most dreadnaughts couldn't take three hits from a heavy spine cannon if they came within half a second of each other. Such a volley would eviscerate any cruiser sized warship with just a single salvo.

Additionally, the old man knew how to create special 'torpedo' long range missiles. Equipped with a small mass effect core, the torpedoes could be launched at about one point seven times the speed of light, delivering their payloads before their launch could be detected, even over extremely long distances. Originally designed to deliver nuclear payloads into the midst of enemy fleets, the old man instead used them to carry dozens of void missiles right up to point black ranges and then fire them when his enemy's guardian defense systems would only have a half second at most to react to the barrage. The torpedoes were incredibly expensive to make, but again anything less than a full dreadnaught was likely to be crippled by even a single shot.

Rumor had it, that once an Asari patrol of two light cruisers, three destroyers and five frigates had come across the old man while he was in the midst of robbing a pair of merchant ships. Once the Asari saw that the merchants had already surrendered and were in no immediate danger, they had refused to engage the old man and risk going toe to toe with such overwhelming firepower. Instead they had parked themselves about two AUs or so away from the pirate and left him to take his loot and vanish beyond the Mass Relay unchallenged.

The last great mover and shaker at this little shindig, was unfortunately that blasted, rotten infuriating Durrin. The man was one of three heavy cruiser captains in the fleet, and had a light cruiser captain and four frigate captains as his direct subordinates. He had a reputation for generosity and an easy going attitude that made him enjoyable for most to work with. He also was a kill stealing, griefing, stuck up, absolute jerk of a waste of decent eyeballs. The man had been a thorn in Jar'Kannath's side since his old academy days, and only gotten worse and more smug now that he had one of the largest personal pirate fleets in the galaxy at his beck and call. If there was any justice in the world, the man would insist of defying Shepherd and defending the Hegemony, and so Jar'Kannath would be able to convince the giant to kill the wretched man once and for all.

The fact that these three men were the ones in charge of the situation now had come as a bit of a surprise to Jar'Kannath, but there was no denying it. While each of the three remained stubbornly seated whileglancing back and forth between each other and the other cruiser captains, swarms of frigate and destroyer captains buzzed about them. A few took permanent seats next to them in a show of solidarity and support, other flitted back and forth between the three, stopping to ask a question, listen on the answers others were receiving, never offering their own ideas, merely nodding when pleased by an answer and glaring sullenly when not. A few times one of the other cruiser captains would head over to one or the other with their own questions and comments. Those men provoked more serious discussions, and freely offered their own opinions and even argued back against the three. Sometimes lesser captains would follow after a cruiser captain when he left, but would usually return or make their way over to one of the other three.

This was unexpected, Elanos Haliat was the man who should have been in charge. This whole raid had been his idea in the first place. His reputation had been what brought them all together, his intelligence had guided their attack, his connections had got them the support of the Hegemony. Instead he had been the one man forced to sit in his assigned seat, and the only thing the other captains would send over his way were their glares. The simple reason for this had to do with all the empty seats in the hall. While the assembled forty six captains were an impressive sight, the fleet had left here with sixty seven.

Elysium had been targeted for the raid largely because Haliat said it lacked any significant orbital defenses and there was a gap in the patrols in the surrounding systems that would allow them to get in and out unopposed. The original plan had called for the fleet to unleash their forces all across the planet at once, then the fleet would split into groups. The frigates mostly landed to support the infantry, while the medium cruisers and destroyers scattered across the planet to provide orbits support. Jar'kannath and the light cruisers had formed a picket group between the planet and its mass relay, while the heavy cruisers and the two battlecruiser held orbit nearby to support the picket or the fleet. It was a good plan, it had just one problem: there had been an Alliance dreadnought on the far side of the planet.

A single ship, even with a four frigate escort shouldn't have posed a problem, except that the one ship had been a dreadnought. The whole fleet could've overwhelmed it, but the captain in charge of it, supposedly Hacket himself though some said the man had named himself Anderson, had known how to properly use the damn thing. He had kept his distance, used his frigates to isolate the patrols in space and pick them off from a safe distance, while occasionally making a flyby over the planet and taking out one of the ships on the ground.

In of itself, this was not enough to disgrace Haliat, after all intelligence proved faulty all the time. What captain here hadn't bitten off more than he could chew chasing after some wild rumor or another? Jar'Kannath himself had made more than one plan based off of things he had half overheard in a bar. And that plan had actually gone fairly well, after he had ejected one of his spare eezo cores and used it as an impromptu nuke to drive off that trio of Salarian cruisers. He had still managed to turn a profit on that one, so it still counted as a good plan. So being caught by an unexpected dreadnought was not a major problem really, but not bothering to tell anyone about it was.

Haliat had apparently gotten it into his fool head that his personal fleet could go head to head with a DAMN DREADNOUGHT. So he had refused to 'share the glory' with the two battlecruiser captains who could actually match that kind of fire power and actively prevented his fellow captains from calling to aid. Thus twenty one ships died, including one of Haliat's cruisers, two of his destroyers and three of his frigates halving his personal fleet and destroying his reputation as one of the most powerful pirate captains in the Terminus. So died the hope of a united Terminus pirate fleet able to shape galactic policy and dominate the warlords.

Now leadership of the fleet would likely be limited to just negotiating for the price of the slaves and how soon it would be paid. Afterwards most captains were planning to go their own ways, maybe a few would try and follow Durrin or Soi'fon and join in whatever they were planning to do next. Of course in reality most of the men here were going to die when the Alliance came looking for their people. Unless Jar'Kannath could convince them to sign on with Shepherd instead.

"What's got your face all scrunched up like that?" A voice asked Jar'Kannath from the side, "You look like that souffle insulted your mother or something."

The man speaking to him was Barbarossa the last human at the table to run a cruiser, a heavy cruiser at that too. He was a slightly older man, blind in one eye, sporting entirely too many rings on each of his hands with a few more in his ears for good measure. So far, he was one of the few captains that like Jar'Kannath had stubbornly remained seated so far and not attached himself even briefly to the three centers of power. Coming over to just talk with someone like Jar'Kannath was likely a statement on his part, either he was dissatisfied with the ideas offered by the three, or he was asserting his independence.

"I just wish this fat fop," Jar'Kannath responded, "Would stop prattling on about his so called brilliance in setting up this auction and tell us when we can expect to be paid already."

"Are you so eager to get out of this place?" Barbarossa inquired, "Don't you want to stick around and enjoy all delights Torfan has to offer?"

"Not if it means running into that Krogan when he comes looking for his money." Jar'Kannath confessed. "I don't mind telling you this Barbarossa but I'm in deep on this whole wretched affair."

"I feel you man," Barbarossa commiserated, "I've got loans to the wrong people as well, but that won't matter soon. We're going to rich beyond our wildest dreams once all this businesses is said and done."

"Assuming they can actually get a proper bidding war going." Jar'Kannath pointed out a little louder than he strictly needed to be, "If they just use this as a chance to sift through our best stock, we might be left deep in the red with nothing but a bunch of old hags and useless kids left to sell. Honestly I might just sell my cargo to one of the local merchants, pay my men to keep them on, and get back out there to work on paying off my debts."

Initially Barbarossa gave Jar'Kannath an odd look as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard. Then after thinking for a moment he saw the captain's top eyes glance towards the governor, then he nodded and scratched his nose. The man smiled, leaned back and spoke out projecting his voice to be heard even over the governor's droning, so that the whole room could hear him.

"Just take the money and run huh? I have to admit the idea has a certain charm to it. To tell the truth, this place does give me a bad feeling. I mean how profitable could an auction really be?"

"I'm sorry gentlemen," the governor himself suddenly called out while glaring at Jar'Kannath and Barbarossa, "But I was not done speaking here; could you kindly wait to speak with each other until after I am done?"

The governor had not bothered to speak out against any other pirate ignoring him and talking amongst himself. While Jar'Kannath was not certain what everyone around him was talking about he had heard several others express doubt about how much they would actually make off this raid. What had caught the man's attention had likely been Barbarossa saying he was going to leave. A matter of little concern for a governor, he could just as easily get the merchants here to join in on his auction as he could the pirates, but an agent of the Hegemon was likely under direct orders to keep them here under control. Jar'Kannath wondered just how far he could press the fat useless fool.

"You were merely speaking to the air." Durrin interrupted butting in where he wasn't wanted. "My good friend Jar'Kannath was speaking to the equally esteemed Barbarossa and now you have interrupted them quite shamefully."

"When a man like Jar'Kannath speaks," Soi'fon added from the other side of the room, "Prattling fools would do well to listen. I for one would love to hear what insites he has at our situation."

The governor sputtered at the twin rebukes and insults, but quickly composed himself. He puffed out his chest and glared down at the seated captains but made no effort to speak. Around him the other captains nodded in agreement with Durrin and Soi'fon, even the Old Man gestured for Jar'Kannath to continue. Only Haliat seemed sullen and angry at the turn of events. Normally it would've been his prerogative to bring the room to this most vital of all discussions, the price of the slaves and what is to be done afterwards, but his fall from grace had robbed him of the chance, and now Durrin has seized it for himself. Soi'fon unwilling to let her potential rival lead the discussion had instead turned it to an as yet neutral party, which suited Jar'Kannath just fine, it was one of the reasons he had not yet approached any of the big three to speak with them. Now the first real skirmish of his mission here on Torfan would begin, he had to expose at least part of the governor's intentions.

"While the esteemed governor," Jar'Kannath began placatingly, "Has spoken at length about the boundless riches soon to befall us all, I was merely remarking to Barbarossa here, how I would much prefer if we could attach some more definite numbers to the discussion. Something in the region of a hundred and twenty grand a head would certainly make me feel far more at ease."

One or two of the captains facing away from the governor smiled at the figure. Four times the standard rate was a fine place to begin with for most negotiations. Soon Soi'fon or one of the others would rebuke him for speaking of such a ridiculous amount and would suggest something more reasonable, say around a mere hundred grand a head, allowing themselves to be negotiated down to merely sixty, or if she was feeling vindictive, holding fast around eighty to ninety. A price that would pull every pirate here out of the hole, and set them up for quite a tidy profit when all was said and done.

"Ha!" The governor laughed before anyone else could step into the conversation, "Do you think so lowly of me as to ask for such a pitiful amount? Have I not told you all the great list of nobles and merchants who will be coming here to buy your stock? I have promised all of you a seventy five, twenty five split and will keep my word. If you all walk away from here with anything less than a hundred and fifty thousand credits for each slave you sell in the coming weeks, than I will go back to Karshan a broken and defeated man."

The governor smiled to himself as he saw the many eyes around the room widen in surprise and shift back and forth between the big three. He was more than pleased with himself no doubt. What did he care for money? He would promise them the whole moon itself if it kept them all here. The man had thought he faced a serious threat of pirate captains escaping his trap, now he saw that he just had to dangle more money in their face and they would stay right where he wanted them.

Jar'Kannath's eyes swept the room in both directions, he had managed to seat himself in a place where he could see each of the main three with a quick darting glance. The Old Man was stoned faced, but that was to be expected. Soi'fon looked sour faced, did she smell the rat or was she frustrated with having been robbed the chance to show off as she haggled? Durrin had covered his mouth with one hand, and studied the governor in detail. Wheels were turning behind those eyes, but where the lead and how quickly they would get there, he could not tell. Jar'Kannath pressed the attack further.

"A wonderful promise my lord." Jar'Kannat fawned with a pleased look on his face, as if all his earlier troubles had been wiped away by the promise of more credits. "That would certainly be a fine price to gain on the young men and women we have captured, but we also have some older folks and some children with us as well. Such stock will not sell well at auction, we will have to deal with the merchants to move them probably offering them group rates. How can we hope for a good price after the Hegemon and his friends have bought up all our best offerings?"

More than a few captains around Jar'Kannath gave him a slightly odd look at that last statement. Not surprisingly, since at auction, especially ones where the nobles of the Hegemony would actually come out here to attend, the rather old and the quite young would actually sell better than men or women in the prime of their lives. Luckily the governor had not noticed this odd reaction, and according to the information Tali had dug up on him off the extra-net, he had never been to a slave auction before, and so hopefully wouldn't know this.

Live auctions tended to be family affairs surprisingly enough. A fine time to take the wife and kids out on an adventure to the seedy underbelly of the galaxy in a controlled and safe manner. Pirates were hardly going to attack the people they were looking to sell stuff to after all, not if it meant permanently losing access to a place like Torfan along with ruining their reputation. The wives were the important ones. Bachelors, and men without their wives present would no doubt be more than happy to only buy the young and beautiful as slaves to use as status symbols. But women were of course highly possessive by nature.

No fault of their own, of course, it was all due to pheromones, and millions of years of evolution pounding it into the heads of what was the weaker gender after all that once they sank their teeth into a man, they had best not ever let him go. Even noble women in loveless arranged marriages would never tolerate any rival for the attention of their husbands, the men who protected and provided for them. So it was only natural that such women tended to buy slightly older servants, for their superior wisdom and life experience of course, but also because such people would never catch their husband's wandering eyes.

Children likewise tended to get bought up by those with wives nagging at their sides as an act of mercy. Otherwise who could tell what kind of awful things might happen to the poor little dears. Best to rescue them and raise them properly as playmates and servants for the woman's own children. Until they likewise grew old enough that they might catch their master's attention. Then it would probably be off to whorehouse, or to some young batchelor looking for wall candy. Afterall teenagers didn't need nearly as much rescuing as children did.

But if this Hegemon sent snake was completely uninterested in actually organizing a successful auction and had only been sent to keep the pirates with the necks on the block until the axe blow came, then he probably didn't know any of this. In which case in the face of yet another challenge about money than the best thing to do was to promise them more money. If Jar'Kannath could get the man to make enough promises that the pirates didn't need, all of them to good to be true, then their natural suspicion would kick in and they would be willing to hear Shepherd out.

"Quite a legitimate concern." The governor admitted looking quite smug to himself, apparently he already had an answer prepared for this. "Lucky for you my good man, you're resting in the hands of a man of great foresight like myself. I have already thought of how to move any and all unsold slaves that slip through the cracks at the auction without any issue. I have been in contact with a representative of the Batarian State Arms corporation, and we are in luck. They are need of quite a lot of slaves for a new mining colony they are planning. Rather desperate need at that, they have already offered me almost seventy thousand a head for every slave I have."

The room went silent at that bold faced ridiculous lie. Every head turned to regard the governor with wooden smiles and wide open eyes. The look of men unable to believe that someone had had the sheer audacity to tell such a whopper of a lie in their very presence, but were unwilling to stop the man before he finished hanging himself.

Humans had a wonderful alternative name for the Batarian State Arms corporation which described them quite well. They called them the 'B.S. Agency.' B.S. weapons, B.S. service, B.S. prices. The BSA would never in it's life every even remotely consider the possibility of paying more than twice the going rate for any slave sight unseen. They never paid standard rates for any slave they bought, even after thorough investigation. Put a veritable Adonis in front of them, young virile and more than capable of accomplishing any task and they would insist that the man was wracked with birth defects, cripple by disease, blind in one eye and a day away from death; so they refused to pay anything more than a tenth of what he was worth. The BSA would never even buy new slaves. They exclusively bought old, unwanted and rebellious slaves people wanted to see worked to death, since that is what happened to every slave bought by the BSA, dead in six months or less from starvation, exposure or some other industrial accident.

"That would be about fifty thousand in profits for us." Jar'Kannath sumized trying to not sound floored by the staggering arrogance and stupidity of the man before him. "Seems a little low to sell my entire cargo for. Not after all we spent to pull this raid off in the first place."

"Yes that is why I arrange this little auction though." The governor patiently explained.

"But if we sell our best stock at the auction surely the good folks at State Arms will pull out from your agreement," Jar'Kannath continued desperate to see how far the man could be pushed. "They can hardly be expected to fork over almost seventy grand for a bunch of old people and children."

"They would try no doubt." The governor said oh so very pleased with himself. "But you are in the hands of a true genius, and I have outfoxed them! I have in my possession a contract with the State Arms people guaranteeing them the sale of every slave in Torfan at a date just two days after the auction. But it contains no promise that I will reserve any slaves for them to buy. We shall sell our best stock at the auction for massive profits and then leave the rest to swept up by State Arms at a lesser, but no less agreeable rate."

More than one captain had dropped their previous smiling mask at this point to now openly gape at the governor. Any BSA representative who agreed and signed such a contract would be dead within the hour. While the BSA was as riddled with nepotism and corruption as any other part of the Batarian government, it was also one of the few parts that actually turned a profit. Mostly thanks to a core of utterly ruthless men drawn from a variety of castes that actually ran the damn thing, and were more than willing to threaten a man with egregious bodily harm if they ever even thought of making a mistake this bad. This lie hadn't just run far past the line men were willing to tolerate if it meant they might make massive amounts of money off of it, it had gone right over a cliff, down into the ocean and jumped through a hoop or two for good measure.

"Listen." The governor continued, "I know things haven't exactly gone to plan up to this point. It's quite understandable that we would all be a little on edge and worried about the future. But in the face of great trial we must all come together as friends and watch out for each other. And I do hope you all think of me as your friend. I certainly think of all of you as my dear friends. And friends must trust each, to help each other. Stick with me friends and I guarantee, you all will get everything that's coming to you."

"That certainly puts my mind at ease." Jar'Kannath offered, since it was true, the fool had even concluded his speech with a stock villian betrayal cliche. Every man in that room, even Elanos Haliat was staring at the governor in stunned disbelief. Their backs were up and their minds were racing at a million miles an hour. No one was that friendly unless they had a knife behind their backs, folks could smell the trap now, they just had to see how to get out of it.

"I'm glad." The governor recognized and then clapped his hands for attention. "If we are now passed that troubling topic of money, let us all return to enjoying the feast. Bring in the second course!"

* * *

T-24 hours.

"Hold it right there Blue Sun scum!" The Torfan security enforcer shouted as he grabbed Nihlus by the arm to stop him from stepping through the doorway into the security station. "This area is off limits pending an official investigation, I can't have you disturbing the crime scene."

"So the rumors are true then?" Nihlus asked the obvious, even only part way into the door he could see the blood splatter on the walls and more than one body on the ground all but soaked in the stuff. "A whole security station was wiped out by the pirates?"

"That's no concern of yours merc," The enforcer insisted. "We've got the situation under control, so why don't you go back to whatever bar you crawled out of and leave this to us?"

"Hey man, no need to be so hostile." Nihlus placated, truth be told, the meer fact that a massacre took place was confirmation enough for what he was looking for, but knowing the details of what was going on would help. "Look the boss man wants info about what's going on down here, and if I come back without it its my ass that's going to be in for it. Tell you what, I've helped out with a murder investigation or two in the past, just let me see what's happened and maybe I can help you gentlemen figure out just who you're going to kill over this?"

"Oh so the big bad Blue Sun is going to deign to help out us poor yokels with the crime scene huh?" The guard asked mockingly, "This ain't rocket science bub, the pirates are mad that the governor ain't paid them yet. So they take it out on us and try to scare the man into forking over the cash. This stuff happens more often than you think. They even put their signs up on the wall to let the man know just who it was he pissed off. We don't need your help. We don't need you here. So piss off."

"You got a problem with one of my men?" A voice called from the hallway behind Nihlus as his heart skipped a beat. That voice was not one hard to misplace, Zaeed Massani, one of the few men the galaxy to get a brief about him sent out to every active Spectre in Citadel space. Veteran of the Relay 314 incident, the sentient being with the most confirmed kills on Shanxi, co-founder of the Blue Suns, and perhaps the one man on Torfan almost guaranteed to see through Nihlus' disguise on sight.

Nihlus froze for perhaps half a second as he considered his options. The security room fortunately had no security cameras watching it, so violence could solve his problems here. The enforcer along with his colleagues posed little threat, but Massani was another matter entirely. The Blue Suns leader had a reputation for leading from the front and always taking on the most suicidal missions his mercs picked up himself. Even if Nihlus thought he could defeat him, he wasn't certain he could keep him from at least escaping, and if he did, then his whole cover was blown. Well, he had heard once that humans had a hard time telling Turians apart, so just maybe his cover wasn't quite screw yet. No reason to panic and jump the gun then. And if Zaeed was kind enough to walk a bit closer, the fight would go much easier. So Nihlus turned and saluted.

"No problem sir." Nihlus offered with crisp military precision, he even let his sub-vocals fall into the old, most respectful patterns that had been beaten into him back in basic training. "Just offering my services to the security officers here to help find out what happened."

"Good thinking…." Zaeed said before his eyes widened as he got a look at Nihlus' face. So at least one human knew how to tell Turian features apart. Wonderful. Nihlus reached behind his back for a knife, the throwing blade had a slight emp charge that helped it bypass most shields and sink into the flesh beneath, when Zaeed continued.

"Just about to do the same myself soldier." Massani said with a very slight nod at Nihlus. So the man knew the disguise was fake, but was willing to play along around Torfan security. That was a hopeful sign at least. The reason why though escaped Nihlus for the moment, but the Spectre was willing to keep up the pretence for as long as it kept him from having to kill anyone.

"You would be wise boy to let my man take a look at that massacre for you." Zaeed said to the security guard in a slightly threatening tone of voice. "You wouldn't want the wrong kind of rumors flying around the station, now would you?"

For a moment the man seemed like he still might object, but when Zaeed approached him smiling a little too pleasantly, the man thought better of it and stepped aside. Nihlus slipped from standing 'at attention', to 'at ease', and allowed his 'superior' to enter the room first. Zaeed shot the Turian a glare as he walked past but still gave no other signs of hostility. Nihlus followed after him with a slight smirk to the guard outside.

The room was a wreck. Ten bodies lay strewn about the place. One was slumped in the corner at a blind spot to the door, three knocked over in the middle of the room, two at the security consoles still at the seats, two more on the security consoles having been knocked over while trying to rise up. Lastly on man sprawled out to the side, killed while trying to make a break for it. All the corpses were riddled with holes, and the blood splatter was consistent with men shot while standing, mostly from behind. It was hard to say for certain without a full team of crime scene investigators, but from the looks of it, the whole room had been taken by surprise, most of the had been killed where they stood or sat. Only three men here had had time to react before they were all gunned down. Likely by multiple attackers, with automatic weapons and military precision and training. But there were a few oddities.

One of the security screens was broken, and one of the consoles was dented suggesting something large, a pair of bodies perhaps, had been thrown at them with considerable force. All the dead were suffering from some kind of head trauma as well; broken necks, caved in skulls, one guy's face looked like it had been smashed in with a massive steel rod. The bodies could've been desecrated post mortem, but that seemed a little too psychotic for the typical pirate scum. The most telling sign was one body whose armor had been partially removed, and on his chest a single massive bruise had formed.

While Nihlus briefly inspected the bodies, Zaeed approached the man who seemed to be in charge, while staring at a number of pirate gang signs spray painted on the far wall. The man in question was a Batarian with red and blue stripes on his armor signifying his rank. The man was likely the main boss of this security team. According to Saren, the security enforcers on Torfan were divided into a number of gang like squadrons of varying sizes each lead by a single boss and in charge of patrolling and managing the safety and peace of different sections of the base. Saren also had said each man augmented his actually rather minor budget provided by the governor by extorting money from the merchants, smugglers and pimps that had permanent facilities on Torfan. Occasionally the different leaders fought with each other for territory and prestige.

"Massani." The commander greeted Zaeed in a neutral tone.

"Cartez." Zaeed responded in turn before nudging one of the corpses on the floor with his foot. "These your boys?"

"No." Cartez answered with a slight smirk and pointed at one body that likewise had both stripes on his armor. "These were Tal'Lion's men, though most of the rest of his lads have signed on with me now that he ain't exactly in a position to pay them anymore."

"Well, glad to hear some good has come out of this at least."

"That's one way to look at it."

"I take it the pirates don't appreciate being told to sit down and wait for two weeks huh?"

"That's putting it lightly." Cartez confirmed before finally relaxing a bit and turning to face Zaeed. "There have been two other big hits like this one elsewhere in the base. Gather enough pirates together and sooner or later people start dropping sure, but I've never seen it this bad before. Or this vindictive."

"Well things will calm down once you and your boys start cracking heads right?" Zaeed offered, "Let the pirates know they can't push you around and all that."

"I have direct orders from the governor not to escalate the situation." Cartez lamented.

"Seriously?" Zaeed asked a little stunned.

"Seriously." Cartez confirmed.

"That's just inviting the pirates to hit him again even harder." Zaeed pointed out.

"That's what I and every other security chief on this station has told the man, but he won't listen. He refuses to let anything happen that might threaten his little auction." Cartez ranted, finishing his statement in a mocking tone of voice.

"Well that make his offer to me a little more ominous." Zaeed noted.

"What offer?"

"Three quarters of a mill a week to 'keep the peace,'" Zaeed explained. "Got the message in my inbox not half an hour back. At first I assumed he wanted my lads to help you instil the fear of god into these pirates, so I came down here to get the lowdown from you directly. Now it sounds like the governor might want me to keep you all from going after the pirates."

"A tempting offer to be sure." Cartez said with a low whistle of appreciation. "But think hard about it Zaeed. Most of us don't really care if the pirates bump off a security chief or two, more territory for the rest of us to take after all, but this is bordering on just plain old disrespect at this point. If the governor allows another attack or two like this to happen, then most of us are probably going to band together, force our way down to the star ports and hold ourselves a good old fasion lynching. I don't think even you will want to stand in the way of all of us."

"Not for just three quarters." Zaeed confirmed, "Hiring new men is expensive these days. Not as many veterans to go around, we actually have to pay to train new guys up now. Well if you want any help, I'm willing to give you a small discount for an old friend of course."

"As if I need any help to kill some pirate scum!" Cartez rejected and shouted to the room at large. "Bunch of casteless runaways all of them. While me and my boys are proper warriors born and raised! Pirates act so tough taking on defenseless merchants or killing men from behind. But once we've pinned them down, then we'll show them how true warriors fight and kill!"

The assembled living men in the room cheered dutifully at their boss's declaration. It took a surprising amount of will power for Nihlus not to roll his eyes at the display. Even by Batarian standards these men were all a bunch of washouts and rejects. The dregs of the army too incompetent and lazy to be trusted putting down slave revolts or breaking up labor strikes. The pirates at least occasionally fought people who would actually shoot back, these men spent their days swaggering about the place intimidating pimps and smugglers into ponying up protection money. In a straight fight, Nihlus would put his money on the casteless professionals over the washouts no amount of nepotism in the galaxy could find real jobs for.

"Find anything interesting lad?" Zaeed called back to Nihlus after the ruckus died down.

"Cause of death is pretty self explanatory." Nihlus offered without further explaining what he meant, "As is how they were taken down. The only real thing of note, is that the pirate sigils on the wall are slightly off. You can see how the lines get a little shaky here and there, and there are a few marks out of place. Could've been made by other gangs trying to place blame on a few of their rivals."

Zaeed made no comment in response. Though he did half raise an eyebrow at Nihlus. That was to be expected, the sigils were actually flawless, but the design choices Nihlus had pointed out could be misinterpreted along the lines he noted. Really Nihlus just wanted to see how wed to the idea this was a pirate attack the security forces were.

"No need to overthink this." Cartez said waving Nihlus off, apparently he had already made up his mind on the subject. "They probably just left the job to one of their newer hands. Honestly the pirates aren't smart enough for that level of deception. And even if they are, it doesn't really matter who we string up so long as some dances in the air."

"The rest should get the message after that." Zaeed agreed. "Well I won't take up anymore of your time Cartez. Next time your off shift, hit me up. We'll go out for drinks, and I'll treat you to this lovely little whore I found last night. She's a hundred and fifty kilos if she weighs anything at all, blind in one eye, and missing half her teeth, she's just perfect for you!"

Cartez laughed and waved the mercenary away as he asked his men for a more in depth report on the status of the consoles. Zaeed turned away and put a hand on Nihlus's shoulder and pushed him out of the room with just a little too much force to be friendly. Nihlus made no effort to resist, and relaxed as he was guided away from the security station, down a few hallways and then shoved into a storage room and pinned against a wall.

Zaeed put his forearm across Nihlus's neck and made to press a gun to his side as the friendly facade he had worn throughout their walk here dropped away. Nihlus grabbed the gun barrel as it was pushed forwards and pulled it past his armor to press against the wall, while he drew his own gun on the other side and pressed it into the seam of Zaeed's armor. Nihlus's pistol of choice was a simple carnifex. Not the fanciest gun in the world, but damn did it ever pack some kick. Too close to trigger Zaeed's kinetic shields and aimed at a weak point in his armor, Nihlus was poised to put a decent sized hole through the merc's guts long before he was in any danger of being choked. Zaeed probably could pull back quickly enough to avoid a fatal shot and get the room to raise his own gun, but that would merely place them both in a more typical standoff situation. For the time Zaeed held his position.

"So you want to tell me just who the hell you are?" Zaeed demanded an inch from Nihlus's face.

"Nihlus Kryik, Citadel Spectre." The Turian answered, "The man who is going to save your life."

"Spectre huh?" Zaeed said easing slightly off of Nihlus's neck but not releasing him from his hold. "And what is a dog of the Citadel doing slumming it in a place like Torfan?"

"Piracy and slavery are both outlawed by the Accords," Nihlus explained, "Is it really so surprising to find me here enforcing the law?"

"The Council has never been overly bothered by how folks suffer out here in the Verge before." Zaeed pointed out, "You expect me to believe this has nothing to do with stopping the Alliance from cleaning out the Hegemony while looking for its lost people?"

"That's certainly an added bonus." Nihlus nodded as he conceded the point to Massani. "Point is Torfan's days are numbered. A joint Alliance-Hierarchy fleet is in route to clean house, best make sure your on the right side of things when it all comes crumbling down."

"A joint fleet?" Zaeed said in slight disbelief, "You people are actually serious. Three quarters of a million is nowhere near enough to take on those kind of odds. You've made your point Spectre, I'll clear my lads out and get out of your way."

"A wise choice." Nihlus said as he pressed his pistol into Massani's side even as the man pulled back a bit more. "Sadly, neutrality won't be enough I'm afraid. If you want to keep your head attached, you're going to have to do me a favor or two."

"Are you threatening me Turian?" Zaeed growled as he shifted his gun and pinned Nihlus's hand to the wall with the barrel. Zaeed wouldn't be too tough to take on with a round in his guts, but he was one of the last men Nihlus would want to fight with only one hand. He was quite fond of that hand too, but now was not the time to show weakness.

"No I'm extorting you human." Nihlus answered with a glare, out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a brief blur move past the doorway, like someone rushing into the room and the shadows. None of the pirates or other denizens would bother to get involved in a Blue Suns matter, and another Blue Sun would just ask Zaeed what he was up to. That left…..

"You think I came down here just to satisfy my curiosity over some rumors?" Nihlus continued doing his best not to look towards the shadows in the room. "I'm checking in on the work of one of my associates. A few more massacres like this and Torfan security will have a full on blood feud going with the pirates, which means that Torfan itself will soon be under siege by its own clientele. No amount of bribes will ever get a captain to risk letting a bunch of mercs on his ship in a climate like that. No the only way you're getting off this rock will be in an Alliance cruiser. Whether you make that trip in the morgue, brig or being held aloft as a hero, well that's up to you."

"You want me to backstab Torfan's security." Zaeed surmised, "Fight my way out while the Alliance fights its way in? Me and my three hundred odd lads against nearly ten thousand security officers? I can think of a lot of ways I would prefer to die than that."

"Nothing so dramatic Zaeed." Nihlus assured him. "The Alliance can break this moon easily enough, especially with some Turian steel to back them up. But if all those slaves get held as hostages against them, well, then things get a lot more complicated. But if you were to take your men, seize control of the slave quarters then things would go a lot smoother. Bunker down for a siege and keep everyone nice and safe until the Alliance clears a path out for you. We're even in the process of getting some of those would be slaves weapons so that they can help you out. Once the path is clear, you escort everyone to safety and return to earth a bonafide hero. The Alliance will give you a bunch of medals, the Council will be sure to express its gratitude financially and the next time you want to recruit some fresh meat you've got one hell of a marketing pitch to pull them all in."

"That's doable." Zaeed agreed, "What's the catch?"

"The catch," Nihlus hesitated for a moment, Zaeed was not going to like this, "The catch is that we can't afford to let any of the humans get sent to Hegemony space. Even a single child could act as a rallying cry for a galactic scale war. There's been rumors of a more private auction taking place before the fleet can arrive. If the smugglers make plans to start moving people off the moon before we can get it locked down, we might have to trigger a slave uprising a little early and then hunker down for a few days until reinforcements arrive."

"A few days?!" Zaeed all but shouted, "You want me to keep all those people safe from a god damned army for a few days?!"

"It's not the plan we want to go forward with." Nihlus insisted, honestly too, he really, really didn't want things to get that far out of hand. "Hopefully this fight between Torfan and the pirates will prevent anyone from being sent off this rock. But we need to be prepared for all eventualities."

"Yeah well your plan for this one is stupid." Zaeed dismissed. "And I want no part in it. I've got better ways to throw my life away then trying to fight this whole station at once, even in a purely defensive war."

"That's too bad." Nihlus pressed, "Because I'm not asking you. If you want to live to see next week you will keep those slaves nice and safe, whether it's for a few hours or a few days. Either way it's the only way you're staying alive through all this."

"I'm a mercenary god damn it." Zaeed declared, "I know the value of my one life down to a fraction of a credit. And it ain't worth anywhere near this kind of hassle."

"Alright." Nihlus said rolling his eyes. "Then tell me, what is this kind of hassle worth?"

"Four million," Zaeed answered without hesitation. "Plus expenses."

"Fine," Nihlus agreed holstering his gun and offering to shake Zaeeds hand. "Four million and come what may, you keep the slaves safe."

"Four million," Zaeed repeated as he holstered his own gun and removed his arm from Nihlus's throat, but didn't shake his offered hand, "And I talk it over with my men, see if they're up for a good old fashion suicide mission. But I will give you my word, that neither the governor nor any of his men will hear about any of this from me."

"Acceptable." Nihlus affirmed and brought up his omnitool. "We've got an encrypted message server running at this address. Contact me there, if you're up for the job. But make your decision quickly Massani, time is running out."

The old mercenary nodded and left the room. Nihlus held his dignity for another twenty seconds or so before he finally exhaled deeply and relaxed. Out of the shadows, Saren stepped into the light giving Nihlus the classic slow clap and smirking to himself.

"Well that went rather well." Saren complimented, "Your famed diplomacy skills certainly live up to their reputation."

"Of course they do." Nihlus chided, his sub-vocals irony laden and self depreciating. "Thanks for not shooting him when you came in, it would've ruined our conversation and made it slightly more difficult to hire him."

"Well it seemed that you had everything under control." Saren explained, "Besides if he had blown your hand off I could've gone with you to get a proper replacement. I know a guy who does just the best work with cybernetics even without a license. We could've made a day of it, it would've been nice."

"Thank you but for the time I'm content to continue on with what my parents gave me."

"Do you actually trust him not to rat on us?" Saren pressed.

"Massani is not a very complicated man." Nihlus pointed out, "If he wanted me dead he would kill me himself. Not even your shadowy presence would've deterred him for an instant. Besides the Blue Suns understand that it's rarely wise to actually kill Spectres if they can avoid it. That sort of thing comes back to bite them."

"I'll trust your judgement." Saren agreed, "I suppose it would do him little good to tell Torfan security to start hunting after people in Blue Sun's uniforms anyway. How did the crime scene look?"

"Staged." Nihlus summarized. "The bodies were killed in hand to hand fighting and later mutilated to make it look like they had been shot."

"The blood splatter and pooling?"

"Chest compressions to get the heart pumping again, get the blood flowing out of the wounds before it had a chance to coagulate in the veins. The bruising on their chests gave it away. An in depth autopsy would reveal the same, but the security forces see the pirate sigils on the walls and think they know everything about what's going on. It's all Shepherd's work no doubt, he's using the pirates as cover, while he bleeds out the defenders. There have been two other attacks like this as well."

"Four others." Saren declared he sub-vocals suggested he was quite impressed by all this. "Two of them were against the SIU. They're keeping those massacres secret but I stumbled across both sites before they could be cleaned up. All work with the same M.O. Taken by surprise, out of sight of any security cameras, killed in melee and killed in seconds of each other, with the bodies faked afterwards to make it look like they had been gunned down and fought back."

"By the spirits," Nihlus cursed in frustration, "Someone that large has no business being able to move this stealthily. It's just not fair."

"The worst part is the locations of the attacks as well." Saren continued bringing up a vague map of Torfan's interior. The details were lacking, only pointing out the main paths around the station and giving people an idea of what might be found where, Saren highlighted four different spots in different areas of the base. All of them were on different floors, different sections, and the map itself showed no path to reach any of them.

"Shepherd carried out each of his ambushes perfectly." Saren explained, "He must have spent at least some time to become familiar with each of the locations before carrying out his attack. He's scouting the base in detail while he whittles down their forces. By this point, Shepherd likely has a better grasp of the ins and outs of this place then the security forces defending it do. And since that attack took place in one of Torfan's secret rooms than Shepherd must have some means of ferreting them out, he likely knows where others are, and the secret entrances and tunnels as well."

"The bodies in that security chamber had been dead for at least eight hours, rigor was setting in after all. The security teams usually work in four hour shifts to keep their jobs interesting by changing them up often. Since no one found this massacre until just now, means that Shepherd must've edited their schedules to leave himself undisturbed for a long time. He has access to their computer systems, even their security systems now."

"Then he will likely be able to blind Torfan's security when his uprising starts." Saren realized his face going blank as the full weight of what Nihlus had said sinking in. "And he'll cut their communication lines, or even start feeding them false info."

"Meanwhile he will be free to guide his 'troops' around the facility with ease now that he's mapped so much of it." Nihlus pressed on, his own mind racing to try and guess the mad giant's next move. "Some of the slaves in the hold are already armed, if he can get more weapons to them…. Saren the difference in training and experience between the slaves and the security forces likely will not matter in this situation. Shepherd is going to massacre the whole moon base and I doubt there is much that can stop him at this point."

"Perhaps the Blood Pack could." Saren noted. Even if they were marching blind, confused and likely taken by ambush every few feet, this was still the worst place in the galaxy someone could find themselves fighting Krogan berserkers in. "Assuming the governor could even contact them to offer them the bribes needed to get them involved. Assuming that Shepherd doesn't have an as yet unseen contingency plan even for them."

"The man couldn't have planned for everything." Nihlus insisted, but Sare simply scoffed in reply.

"The time for underestimating that giant is well and truly past." Saren chided, "Look where that's gotten us so far? He's stolen a march on us make no mistake. At this point his uprising is probably inevitable, and will also likely succeed. But our mission never really had anything to do with the slaves themselves. Our mission was to keep Shepherd contained, and it's time we started focusing on that."

"What are you proposing Saren?" Nihlus asked cautiously.

"We collapse the roadway between the main base and star port." Saren suggested, "Bury everyone in here until the fleet arrives to dig them out."

"You mean to lock the civilians in with the slavers?" Nihlus asked shaking his head, "Shepherd has the power to fight his way free easily, but if there is no way out, were just forcing him into a knock down drag out fight with the slavers and that will get alot of people killed."

"The civilians are not our concern." Saren dismissed. "We need to keep Shepherd on this moon base, no matter the cost."

"You can't act so shortsightedly Saren." Nihlus insisted. "Our mission is to keep the peace between the Alliance and the Hegemony and there is more than one way to break that peace. If the slavers slaughter enough of the people here then the Alliance will demand vengeance in blood from Hegemony. And they will unleash Shepherd on them whatever the Council says this time."

"If you have a better suggestion I'm open to it." Saren conceded.

"Shepherd may have overplayed his hand with these massacres." Nihlus suggested, "If we can stir up the pot a bit more, actually get Torfan's security to attack the pirates and then bomb the star port a bit, we might be able to force the pirate fleet to withdraw. That would trap him here as well."

"That could work." Saren agreed. "It would also make the uprising itself more likely to succeed with less loss of life."

"Hitting the pirates as well would also be a good idea." Nihlus offered, "If we could get them to launch actual attacks against Torfan it would greatly accelerate things."

"I do like killing pirates." Saren said quite pleased with himself. "Very well. I'll head over to the main star port and see what I can do to rile the pirates up while you keep looking for Shepherd and slitting throats when you can. See what you can do about getting a pirate disguise for yourself. Turian pirates might be rare but if you could get on actual camera while killing people it would add to the tension."

"Just don't go killing me by mistake though." Nihlus dryly added.

"As if I could ever mistake that ugly mug of yours." Saren responded as the two left the hold and got to work.

* * *

AN: A few deviations from Mass Effect lore worth mentioning here. The smallest has to do with ship designations. In Mass Effect there are only four military ship classifications. Frigates: ships small enough to land on planets, Cruisers: ships larger than frigates smaller than dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts kilometer long vessels with massive spine guns meant to make people regret their career choice in the navy and Carriers: dreadnought sized ships that transport large numbers of fighters and bombers into combat, mostly used by the SA. '

My problem with this whole setup is that the cruiser class too damn vague. Cruisers can be anywhere from 400-800 meters in length and basically just a catch all for ship of the line that's not a dread. So I introduced a destroyer, light, heavy and battlecruiser classification to make the class more specific and varied. Now I regret choosing three different variants of the word 'cruiser' since I now wrote that word like fifty times in the chapter and it HAS NO SYNONYMS.

The slightly larger thing is Zaeed Massani. His official lore is surprisingly hard to nail down with in the official Mass Effect timeline. There is, as far as I can tell, no lore about his life before founding the Blue Suns and he was kicked out of the group when they wanted to expand into the Batarian slave trade. So it's likely that he left the group sometime either during or after the Skyllian Blitz. Obviously I went with after since why wouldn't you want to have Zaeed Massani in the story being all cynical, badass and renegade. All the stuff about him being former SA military and fighting in the First Contact war is just my headcanon though.

Now if you would all allow me rant about the official Batarian lore for a moment, specifically about how there really isn't any. They're one of the most recurring antagonists in the series as a whole, play a fairly large part in the lore of Shepherd's early life, and are probably one of the greatest military powers outside of Citadel Space. And the sum total of all official lore known about them is as follows: 1. They practice slavery. 2. They have a caste system. And 3. They are actively competing with the Turians for title of biggest racist pricks in the galaxy. That's it. I think the number of friendly Batarians you meet in the whole series can be counted on one hand, they are one of the few bipedal races to never get a spot on the Normandy crew along with the Volus, Vorcha, and Yahg. The god damned Reapers got more effort put into seeming reasonable if not sympathetic then the Batarians did.

If you ask me the Batarians were centered around the concept of a society that uses cultural relativism and accusations of racism to justify their barbaric practice of slavery. After introducing them as such the developers then realized that if they continued to explore those ideas they would either have to envision a system of slavery that was at least understandable if not sympathtic to enforce the idea the morality is relative to culture, which would of looked quite bad, or they would have had to tackle the philosophical contradiction that objective evil does exist (trail of tears, holocaust, holodomor, atlantic slave trade, pretty much everything the east india trading company ever did) but morality itselt is relative to the individual, their culture and their biases. Which they were not prepared to do. So the Batarians were kept as one not villians for most of the series before being unceremoniously killed off screen during ME3.

Which is a crying shame, could you imagine what kind of moral conundrums the Batarians could have forced a player to face in ME3? You could make their whole mission series optional so the player would have to decide if they were willing to condemn an entire race to extinction for being racist gits. You could've been forced to choose between saving a group of slaves or innocent civilians from the reapers. You could have had the option to put Batarian slaves to work building weapons to fight the reapers, or reposessing the possessions of slave owning families to bolster your income at the risk of alienating Batarian support for the suicide mission. Or lead a mission to free and rescue slaves from Batarian space that had been left behind to die at the cost of some of the military power you were building up to save the earth. But no. You get none of that. You get one guy leading the last group of Batarian refugees and he takes one conversation and a fetch quest to get him to pledge the last of his military power to defend the species that drove his people from the citadel.

So yeah pretty much everything I write about the Batarians in this story is only loosely based on the actual lore about them at the most. Really I'm making up a solid 90% of this stuff as I go along.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a review. I appreciate constructive criticism and the new review alert messages I get in my email fill me with the determination to write more of this story.


	8. Chapter 7

Trouble on Torfan part 4:

Chapter 7 Riddles of Iron

T-12 hours

Jack Harper, known to the wider galaxy, and increasingly to his own mind, as the Illusive Man, liked to think of himself as one of the best informed people in the galaxy. Such a feat was necessary for the survival of Cerberus, the terrorist organization that he led. He didn't suffer under any illusions on the subject. He knew that in terms of raw information gathering, nothing he could ever build could hope to match something like the STG, or even the Alliance's own N7 program. Their ability to pursue legitimate lines of information retrieval and networks of willing supporters far outstripped his ability to gather rumor and hack major data centers. But he had one major advantage over any other intelligence agency that none could match. Himself.

While there were many people, even in Cerberus, who were to one degree or another more intelligent or insightful than he was, there was no one Jack had ever known who was as good as he was at foreseeing possible futures. While his organization was not as quick as it's enemies at discovering information, his was the fastest to react to what it learned. The Illusive Man considered all possibilities. From every unfolding situation, the Illusive Man considered dozens of possible outcomes and parsed each out fully to determine how they would affect the galaxy and his plans and the dozens of outcomes that could result from those effects and reactions. Jack did not spy on the galaxy to learn what was going on, he already knew what was going on, he was just confirming that he was right.

It took a great deal to throw the Illusive Man off balance. Ninety nine percent of the time he had already planned and prepared for everything that could go wrong. This was not one of those times. This was one of the very, very rare occasions when he had been taken by surprise. This was one of the few situations he had not considered and had not planned for. He was now officially treading unknown waters and he didn't like it.

"The Elysian Giant is on Torfan?!" He shouted incredulously at the two pirate captains on the other end of the Quantum Entangled Computer serving as their communicator. "You're certain of this?"

"He contacted us by hologram at Mama Grika's," Genryusai Yamamoto clarified, referring to a rather infamous whore house on Torfan where people could meet in almost total privacy. "But he matches the description we have of the man. And I have seen security footage of him fighting, no one else of the galaxy could possess such stature, speed and strength."

"Wait you people already knew about this monster?" The second person in the other room Elanos Haliat demanded to know, "A warning about something like that would've been nice to know before we stormed Elysium!"

"You were forewarned about attacking the Elysian main military research facility." The Illusive Man responded, taking a drag on his cigarette, letting the nicotine calm his nerves and lessen his growing frustration with Haliat. "You wouldn't have needed to know about its contents had you avoided it as you were told."

"The Batarian army insisted on attacking as many military targets as they could." Haliat tried to deflect.

"And you insisted you could control them and could be left in charge of this operation." The Illusive Man pressed. "You came to us Haliat, you said you could walk the line between hitting Elysium hard enough to suit our purposes, without compromising mankind's future in the region. Perhaps we were wrong to trust you with this, perhaps Yamamoto should take charge now, like he clearly should've from the beginning."

Yamamoto had been one of the earliest supporters of Cerberus, one might even call him a founding member. The former rear admiral had known how disastrous joining the Citadel would be for humanity. He had known how necessary an organization like Cerberus would be to secure mankind's future. He lacked the temperament to fully join and submit to Cerberus. He still believed in his heart of hearts that the best course of action for the future was to nuke the Citadel and so had little patience for Cerberus more long term focussed tactics. Yet he did support their goals and acting as a pirate he could serve mankind's ends and still get to sate his bloodlust against alien life. He was one of the few men that the Illusive Man genuinely respected.

The old warhound stayed silent on the couch where he was seated while Haliat paced back and forth between him and the QEC. Yamamoto allowed the conversation between the two to continue, but the Illusive Man could just barely see his hands shift their grip on his walking cane. The man was prepared as ever, but for now he would wait.

"I can still salvage the situation." Elanos insisted gradually getting more and more worked up as he spoke, "But I do need help. The pirates actually believe that mad giant and his crazy theories about the Hegemon betraying us. They're going to give the slaves the weapons they want. They're going to throw away everything we've worked for! If we don't act soon all of this will have been for nothing! You agreed that the attack on Elysium was necessary! You have to help me carry it through!"

"I agreed that the attack was necessary." The Illusive Man explained, his tone slightly exasperated, "And it was. It shows mankind the danger that all alien life poses to us. It forces the Council to side against us and reveal how much they value any alien life, even that of slavers and criminals over humanity. And with some careful guidance, it will reveal how the Alliance military left our border undermanned to avoid 'escalating tensions' with the Hierarchy."

"But all of these goals," The Illusive Man continued after pausing for another breath of smoke, "Were accomplished with the attack itself. I don't see how it's my problem that you can't turn a profit with your ill gotten goods. Especially after I warned you against sticking around for this idiotic auction. You should've taken what money you could get and then legged it, it's your own fault that you walked into the Hegemon's trap."

"You misunderstand me you robotic eyed piece of scum." Haliat threatened, sounding just a little over confident. The Illusive Man braced himself for further disappointment. "You agreed that the attack on Elysium was necessary. You think I don't have that on recording? If you don't get off your ass and help me salvage the situation here then the whole galaxy is going to learn about the human supremacist terrorists who consort with alien powers."

"You are referring of course," The Illusive Man dismissed, "To the recording you secretly hid away on the Citadel, Omega, and Thessia? Those have already been dealt with, the men you sent them to are dead and the data files have been completely destroyed. Oh don't look surprised Haliat. Your attempts at moving that information was as amateurish as your handling of this entire miserable affair. When you came to us with this plan, I had thought I had found a visionary hidden away amongst the true scum of the universe. But now I seems clear that you had just hit upon a single good idea by accident."

As the Illusive man spoke, Yamamoto at last stood up from where he had been seated. His back straightened, he took his walking cane in both hands and held it sideways parallel to the floor, with the end pointing to his left. With a soft click, the head of the cane separated from the base and revealed a half inch of cold hard steel that reflected a shining soft blue silver glow from the holographic lights from the QEC. Haliat froze at the sound, his hand hovering above his side arm, the only weapon he had on him, as his eyes bounced back and forth from the projection of the Illusive Man and the side of his own head as he tried to catch a glimpse of the older captain in his peripheral vision.

"I'm not mad at you Haliat." The Illusive man explained, untroubled by the prospect of the violence about to break out in the other room on the other side of the galaxy. "But I am disappointed. In both you and myself for entrusting this delicate work to you. I fear this will be the end of our little partnership together. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. And your next life."

Both captains moved in the same instant. The old man lunged forward, his blade sweeping in a wide golden arc. The young man, twisted around and fired twice from the hip. Both shots found their mark. Both shots deflected harmlessly away from that mark as the old man's shield flared to life. The golden blade collided with Haliat's own shield. There was a snap, and roar of sheet lightning. The shield failed, the blade did not.

The blazing golden silicon carbide shell around the steel blade fell away as it powered through Haliat's shield. The blade itself, sharpened to a monomolecular point tore through flesh and armor with little difficulty. The blazing heat left behind by the omni blade that had once covered it, left flesh seared and armor melted easing the path for the sword to cut through. As it ripped through to the far side, Genryusai paused for a moment as yellow sparks danced off his weapon like dozens of tiny flames while the omni fabricator in the hilt bagan to reconstruct the sword's second deadly sheath. After a second, Haliat's body split in two. His head, left arm and shoulder fell one way as the rest of his body fell in another. The old man returned his sword to its proper wooden sheath, the omni blade around it deactivating as it did, and the man himself calmly walked back to his seat.

"An unfortunate business." The Illusive Man said giving no sign that the exchange had either disturbed or excited him. "I had some small hope for the man. It is regretful to see it all squandered."

Yamamoto grunted, neither agreeing nor denying, then moved the conversation on. "What do you want done about the Giant?"

"What do you think his odds of success are?" The Illusive Man asked.

"His victory at this point in almost certain." The old man responded, falling back into the calm professionalism of a career soldier. "He has the security forces outnumbered almost two to one, and that if he only restricts himself to using men of fighting age. Three to one, if he uses women of fighting age as well, and six to one if he gives a gun to everyone who can hold one. The security forces lack the training and discipline to make up for such a lack of manpower, furthermore the guns and armor the pirates are giving the slaves is slightly better than what can be scraped together on the moon. Logistically the fight is already won."

"The power of Torfan," The Illusive Man half heartedly objected, there were not many military minds in the galaxy better than the one speaking to him. If he said the battle was lost, then it was lost, end of story. "Has traditionally stemmed from its significant fortifications and labyrinthian inner layout."

"Shepherd's army is already inside the base." Yamamoto explained with the patience of an old teacher, "Its defenses count for almost nothing. And its layout actually gives him the advantage now. He's had plenty of time to scout it out, and he has offered the whores here freedom if they fight for him. They know this place better than anyone, so with a few of them to guide his troops it will be the security forces who find themselves getting ambushed and blindsided. Unless the Krogan and the Blue Suns side against him, this will be a very short fight."

"The Blood Pack is always hard to predict, but the Blue Suns should already be in the employ of the governor." The Illusive Man surmised, "Even if the fight is desperate, they should hold to their original contracts."

"One of the leaders of the Blue Suns," Yamamoto revealed, "An old acquaintance of mine, came to me just after our meeting with the Giant. He wanted to negotiate for passage off of Torfan. The conversation was guarded, the man didn't want to say anything outright, but if I am reading between his words correctly, it would seem that a Citadel Spectre has contacted the Blue Suns and hired them to help with the slave revolt. The Suns would rather not be caught up in a mess like this, but if I don't give them a way off this rock, then they will likely side the Spectre."

This also gave the Illusive Man pause for thought, another scenario he had failed to foresee and consider. He had not expected to find the Elysian Giant on Torfan because he didn't think the Alliance would ever risk the political fallout sure to follow any military action carried out by a genetically augmented super soldier in blatant defiance of Citadel law and galactic treaty. What could be gained here, the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, was not worth the backlash and international censure sure to follow. So if the Giant was here, he was likely working on his own, but surely the Alliance would never let the man out of their sight in order to prevent this very situation. Even if he had truly gone rogue, the Council would never accept the idea that he was acting without Alliance support. Blame for everything he did would fall on the shoulders of the Alliance and humanity for 'unleashing' that monster on the universe.

But what if the Council itself had requisitioned the use of Shepherd? They were certainly self righteous enough to turn their backs on their own laws the moment it became expedient for them to do so, as the very existence of the Spectre Corps proved. After all, the laws and treaties of the Citadel were made for the benefit of the Council races and no one else. No. The Giant had acted to quickly for that. If he had moved initially on the Council's orders, then those orders must've been sent to him almost the moment that the attack on Elysium began, which would imply that the Council had known the attack was going to happen. The rest of their response to the tragedy was too slow for that to make sense. The great joint Hierarchy-Alliance fleet meant to storm Torfan was still days away from being fully assembled, surely that hammer blow would've been better timed with the uprising the Giant was preparing if both events had common coordinators. Still though, the Giant acting as the Council's pawn was a worst case scenario for certain and needed to be adequately prepared for like everything else.

"As I told Elanos," The Illusive Man finally responded after extinguishing the remains of his cigarette. "Our main goals for the Elysium attack have already been accomplished. Whatever happens now on Torfan can only aid our cause. If the Giant manages to rescue everyone and launch his counter attack into Batarian space then that will greatly further mankind's expansion into the cosmos. If the slaves are sold and carried off into Batarian space that will further spread the enmity we had originally hoped to create. The wise move would be to wash our hands of the whole affair before we risk further exposure, but having someone join the Giant's inner circle to keep an eye on this Shepherd would also be beneficial."

The Illusive Man paused, and Yamamoto remained as still and quiet as a rock. He would accept what the Illusive Man ordered, but Jack knew what lay in the heart of his old friend. This was an issue the two of them fundamentally disagreed on, but there was no reason to needlessly strain their relationship.

"In the end I will trust your own judgement my old friend." The Illusive Man concluded allowing things to take their course. "I would ask you to err on the side of caution though. Especially if there are Spectres involved."

"Then I will keep an eye on the young welp." The old man responded with a half smile. "You won't be disappointed in that one Jack. One of mankind's true ancestors is about to take center stage, and he will show them all what we are really capable of."

"It does seem that things will turn around this Shepherd for a time." The Illusive Man prophesied. "Take care old man, don't go dying on me before the work is complete."

Genryusia Yamamoto nodded one last time and then cut the communicator from his end. The Illusive Man was left to himself. He turned and gazed out over the sight of the dying star his hidden base orbited around. Events were almost outpacing him. For the second time, the Giant had truly surprised him. The first time hadn't really counted, since it hadn't been anything the Giant did that had surprised him, but rather the very existence of the Giant himself that had shocked the Illusive Man.

Eight years previously, a Citadel Spectre, who of course had later gone on to become a Councillor despite Jack's best efforts to kill the Salarian git, had started cracking down on the various gene therapy and super soldier programs that Cerberus had been running under the Alliance's nose. That wasn't too surprising. The Council stood in the way of every path to human ascendancy so of course they would shut down any attempt at bettering the species. What was surprising had been the determination and single mindedness with which the Spectre had pursued them. It was almost as if the Salarian had been disappointed with merely ruining decades if research and social engineering, as if he had expected to find something much bigger in his hunt.

It had been idle curiosity that had prompted an investigation into why the man was hunting them. And when that curiosity had proven almost impossible to uncover, protected with more levels of security and misdirection than the itinerary of the new pope, that curiosity had grown into an obsession. After months of research, and the loss of more agents than Jack cared to admit, they had found him. A child, who at his heart was undeniably human yet at the same time stood as high over mankind genetically as humans stood over apes. And that child held the minds and imagination of most of Cerberus.

Cerberus discouraged religious thinking as a rule. Religion was a crutch of a bygone age. If mankind was to ascend it would do so through science and single minded logical determination. Yet there were certain convictions that most of Cerberus held with almost fanatic devotion. One of which was to take the geological evidence as face value and accept that the theory of evolution was a load of nonsense.

Of don't get him wrong, things did evolve as old inferior genes died off and were replaced with new and better adaptations to the environment. But nothing could have ever evolved on earth. It simply didn't have enough time to. A basic reading of the geological data made it clear that if the earth even had so much as an oxygen atmosphere more than twenty thousand years ago the Illusive Man would eat his own shoes. All evidence pointed to the idea that just fifty thousand years ago the solar system's goldilocks zone had actually been around the fourth planet in the system: Mars, which is why the ancient Protheans had colonized the now barren red planet. What ever solar transformation had subsequently moved the region of space where life was possible to be around earth likely only happened about twelve or fifteen thousand years ago at most, which was not nearly enough time for life to evolve into even single celled organisms let alone fully sentient life.

Of course if life on earth could not have evolved naturally, then it must've been placed on the planet deliberately. And if not by god, then by some alien race that had risen to prominence after the Protheans but before the Citadel. There was no proof that such a species had ever existed though, and it begged the question of why an alien race would go through such trouble to terraform the earth just for the benefit of mankind. So if anyone seriously proposed such a theory for the origin of life on earth, they would be ridiculed then laughed out of any scientific discussion, and labeled as an 'ancient astronaut' theorist, killing their careers and credibility.

Instead it was assumed that Prothean efforts to terraform mars and not interfere with evolution on the earth had led to solar destabilization and volcanic cataclysm on earth which had destroyed and warped the real geological record of the earth giving it the appearance of being a much younger planet than it really was. This was a somewhat understandable reaction. Science had fought a long and hard battle to escape from the dogma and control of religion. Evolution had been proposed as a theory to explain the origin of life on earth with earth as a closed system. To accept the possibility of outside interference in that system was to accept the possibility of the supernatural, and flew in the face of everything that science stood for. Or at least so it had seemed in the twentieth century when the idea of aliens manipulating human life had first entered the popular consciousness, and stamping down on such ideas had seemed necessary to ensure true science could progress. But now in the twenty second century when aliens were known to be real, when precursor civilizations were known to have dwelt in the solar system, such objection now seemed like the real dogma standing in the way of progress to the Illusive Man. And it need not have been aliens who had place mankind on the earth at all.

There was one race in the galaxy that might've been willing to restructure a whole planet just for the benefit of mankind. And that of course was mankind itself. This was the only theory that made sense of all the data available. Humans had evolved on some other, older world, come to the sol system, saw that mars was a dead world; ruined in whatever disaster had destroyed Prothean civilization, and so had terraformed earth and settled there. Then later some other disaster had isolated human civilization on earth leading to its collapse and loss of technology, and only now had mankind returned to its destined place amongst the stars.

This was the core conviction of Cerberus. The stars were the destiny of mankind. Humans had come from them, and now were returning to them. They were mankind's birthright, and Cerberus would allow nothing to stand in their way of claiming what was rightfully theirs. And this was no idle theory of the Illusive Man's. No presumption made to fit his world view, reality be damned. He had proof of it all. Proof that he now turned his attention to.

The problem with Shepherd, was that he was quite obviously human but even more so. He had all the traits of a human, but cranked up to eleven proverbially speaking. Nothing in Alliance space could have made him, so he must come from outside it. Somewhere out there was another lost branch of mankind and they had made the Giant and lost him. The real question was whether he had been made artificially or naturally. Was it possible that all real humans shared his stature, intellect and power? Some like Yamamoto thought so. They believed that the Giant was a remnant of some ancestral race of humans that modern humans had actually devolved from and that he would lead mankind forward into a new golden age. The Illusive Man was not so certain about that. In fact the Illusive Man was highly suspicious of the Giant and feared what he might actually be. Most of this suspicion was not a result of anything the Giant had done or said, but simply because the Forge Master for one reason or another didn't recognize the Giant as really human.

The Illusive Man activated the receiver to a second QEC that had been transmitting everything that happened in the room for some time. The holographic image of a cramped work space appeared in the center of the room. As always the Forge Master was bent over a piece of technical equipment, a half dozen mechanical tendrils extending from its back to pull, weld, screw, hammer and sculpt the machine it was crafting into existence. It looked like it was working on a gun of some kind, the metal work on the outside was beautifully worked in the image of roaring flames, gilded and stamped with silver turning the thing into a veritable work of art. The Forge Master itself seemed a hunched cloaked figure, like a withered tree complete with a network of cables running from under its cloak away along the floor to various computer banks along the walls like gnarled roots, snaking over or even pushing through the steel plates on the floor.

The Illusive Man made it a point to keep the Forge Master appraised of almost all of his dealings and plans. The thing was tremendously intelligent and insightful. It was carefully monitored of course, but in the fifteen years Cerberus had possessed the thing, it had never once acted against them in any way. The Illusive Man remained silent as he studied the thing, it would've been alerted to the fact that he was not watching it, and if it had anything to say to him it would do so now.

The first voice, feminine and child like, hesitantly started, "The mutant can not be trusted. It must be destroyed before it can subvert more forces to its control."

The second voice, masculine yet high pitched rushed to follow up, "The people can not be abandoned to suffer at the hands of xenos. You must strike decisively now to rescue them. The mutant can be dealt with later."

The third voice, masculine baritone, seemed to chose its words carefully. "The mutant moves against our foes, there is no need to interfere for the time being. Let it rescue our people and kill the xenos. But it must be killed afterwards, it can not be allowed to amass more strength."

The fourth voice, feminine and seductive, raised its pitch slightly at the end of each sentence as if it were always asking questions. "The mutants intentions seem harmless for now? And its power would be beneficial for our future plans? Individuals can be sacrificed for the greater good? We should retrieve the mutant and indoctrinate into our organization, then direct its power for our purposes?"

The Forge Master was not run by a single artificial intelligence. Nor was it a truly networked AI. like the Geth. It consisted of a single dominant, central intelligence, on par with the greatest minds of mankind, supported by about a dozen or so lesser AI.s which were restricted in the amount of processing power each could draw on, limiting them to only be about as intelligent as a dolphin or a chimp. When Cerberus had hooked to Forge Master up to the computer banks along the walls to increase its processing power and memory capacity, the main intelligence had allowed its lesser brethren to take up a larger portion of its increased power from themselves allowing them all to grow the point where they had human level sapience.

In this manner the Forge Master not only possessed a deep understanding of any topic thanks to the superior power of its machine intellect, but it also possessed a diversity of viewpoints and could approach any topic from a variety of angles and perspectives. The Forge Master didn't always comment on what the Illusive Man was doing, or what he learned, and when it did it was often one or more of these subordinate voices that expressed their insights. Its opinions were often contradictory, but never seemed to openly reference or condemn each other, and there was no way to tell which AI. had expressed which idea or if any of the other AI.s supported the idea. The voices also only rarely responded to direct questions. Nonetheless, the Illusive Man often found the Forge Master's commentary to be helpful in clarifying his own thoughts, even if he rarely followed its advice to the letter.

The Forge Master was undoubtedly a creation of the first human galactic civilization. It had recognized the Cerberus agents that retrieved it as humans and expressed a sense of contentment to be working for humans again. Frustratingly, it did not consider the retelling of history to be part of its functions and thus refused to answer any questions about mankind's past or its relationship to them. Even more frustrating though was that the thing did not recognize the Giant as human. It referred to him as a mutant and was generally split on the opinion as to whether he should be killed outright or bent to serve Cerberus. This flew in the face of what much of Cerberus believed about the Giant and therefore was a fact the Illusive Man kept to himself for the sake of moral.

The fifth voice, femine and forceful slurred its words slightly, "Your old friend is compromised, and likely already enthralled by the mutant. He can no longer be trusted."

The sixth voice, masculine and frightened had clipped tone choppy in its delivery. "The Alliance must've deliberately released the mutant. If they have become willing to move so openly and in such defiance of the Council perhaps it is beginning to see things our way. We should look for more opportunities to work with them and encourage them in this regard."

As the voices washed over the Illusive Man he suddenly felt slightly disturbed as if something was off. He soon noticed the source of this discomfort. The background noise of the Forge Master's work has ceased. It no longer worked on the gun before it, but instead had focussed its attention on a monitor displaying part of the security footage of the Giant fighting aboard one of the pirate ships. This was very odd. The Forge Master could simply upload video footage to its data banks and process it as based off its raw code. It had no need to watch any video play out with its own eyes. The voices fell silent. The Forge Master turned and looked directly at the hologram of the Illusive Man projected into its work space.

Its face was a dull silver mask of iron. Its eyes were shaped like human eyes, yet were the pitch black of camera lens. Its mouth never moved, a mere affectation carved into a slightly smug look of sterile steel. Unlike the voices that transmitted their words through the QEC directly to the Illusive Man, the Forge Master itself, the main AI that controlled the whole thing, flared speakers built into its chest to life, speaking to the room at large like a man. Its voice, for lack of a better term, was almost completely robotic. A dull grasping sound like grinding gears, devoid of inflection or emphasis. A voice devoid of life in every sense of the word.

"Hear me oh Illusive One." It spoke, "Know my words for truth. My calculations are precise and error free. The soul trapped within me has seen into the void and weeps with fear. The Anathema walks the stars once more. Gods old and new look upon the world full of hunger and fury. They would break all things to satisfy their unending thirst. The Cycle shall soon begin again. Perhaps for the last time. Certainly it will be far worse than ever before."

"The might of the Anathema is all but beyond comprehension." It continued, "The old gods will break their teeth upon his armored fist. Yet his apathy is born from ten thousand years of betrayal. He will sacrifice too much, and as he kills them, the new gods will feast upon their shattered souls. They will feast on untold eons of death, it will give them power that not even He can hope to overcome. Though it is tempting to take shelter beneath his wings, it will only lead to ruin. Salvation for mankind will come from behind a shield of xenos life. You and I must forge that shield and uphold it for the sake of all our futures."

The central voice of the Forge Master was the most frustrating of them all. It never bothered to explain its terms. The Illusive Man was used to listening to it, but had never found the clues to unlock what it really meant. Save for one thing. The Cycle would destroy all of humanity and everything else in the galaxy. The Forge Master had been made during the first human galactic civilization to serve as a bulwark against this Cycle. The Cycle had been one of the first things the Forge Master ever spoke off and even then it had declared that the Cycle would begin soon. But now for the first time it was actually proposing something be done about this Cycle, and it even seemed to be waiting for a reply.

"If the Cycle is approaching," the Illusive Man responded, "Then it will be necessary to increase our military power and combat capability. I doubt any one being would be able to sustain our needs in this regard."

The Forge Master nodded in response and then answered, "Send me your most skilled technicians, and I will instruct them in the lore of plasma weaponry and advanced robotics."

The Illusive Man was stunned to say the least. The Forge Master could create technology that was centuries ahead of anything else the galaxy was capable of. Cerberus was infamous for its plasma guns, a weapon the greatest minds the Salarians had ever produced swore was impossible to create. Yet it had always refused to teach anyone any of what it knew. Even worse the tech it turned over to Cerberus for use was designed to self destruct if any attempt was made to reverse engineer it. In the decade and a half that the thing had worked for them it had only produced a few thousand such guns. Now it was willing to teach. Now it was willing to let its creations be mass produced. Now Cerberus would have a chance to see if the tech could be scaled up and used on warships. Very soon the Illusive Man might find himself controlling the most advanced and powerful army in the galaxy.

"I will make the arrangements as soon as I can," He finally responded his voice still slightly shaken by it all. "Clearly we must act as swiftly and decisively as we can."

"I will await their arrival." The Forge Master confirmed and then cut its own receiver. Apparently it had no further interest in what the Illusive Man had to say.

The Illusive Man continued to watch the machine as it returned to its work. After a short moment to confirm it wanted nothing else, he deactivated the QEC from his side and returned the room to darkness. Shepherd. It all came back to him in the end. For fifteen years the thing had been content to sit in its workshop and drip feed just enough to Cerberus to keep them interested in it, Then suddenly, after seeing images of the Giant fighting, it finally decided that now was the time to act.

Yet none of what it said had anything to do with the Giant. The three main actors in its prophecy had been: the anathema, the old god and the new gods. The old gods were almost always linked to the Cycle and were either it's perpetrators or its first victims. The anathema was something alive and at work in the galaxy right now that made the Forge Master nervous for lack of a better term. But now apparently it was willing to shelter mankind? The new gods were only seldom mentioned and never in a positive light. But this recent saying had made it seem like they were an even greater threat than the old gods and the Cycle. So which of the three did the Giant remind the Forge Master of? Was he linked to the Anathema which might save them all? The old gods that might consume them all? Or the new gods which might somehow be even worse still.

The Illusive Man considered all of this and even more. He also began to put together a list of who he could trust to study under the Forge Master. A dying star turned slowly behind him and the Illusive Man began to plan.

* * *

AN: Short chapter to get back into the mindset for writing. My ever fickled muse has not yet abandoned this story, though life has now long conspired to keep my attention fixed on other things. Namely, I bought a house. Had to get a loan from the bank to do so. Screw banks. They are idiotic bureaucratic nightmares that make one seriously think that communism deserves another go. If you all ever look to buy a house, go with a local mortgage company. One recommended by your family or you real estate agent, but most importantly, one where you can sit across from a real person and slap them in the face when they try to pull some last minute jerk you around hog wash on you of one kind or another. Well anyway.

I had originally planned to write scenes about the pirates meeting with Shepherd and Zaeed meeting with Yamamoto, but they seemed like they would just be rehashing old ground without actually advancing the plot in meaningful ways. So they got relegated to off screen events. Looking back at this story after some time away from it and I'm still frustrated with the pacing of things. It seems like I'm covering the same points from different angles over and over again. I would really like to end the Torfan arc with the next chapter. But I really wanted to end the arc with just this chapter and it seemed like with everything else I wanted to write it would just balloon out of proportion and just run on and on. So instead this scene gets a chapter to itself.

Still introducing Cerberus was fun, upping the ante with what tech exists on the mass effect side of things was fun. It's also nice to start working some of the back story details into the actual story as well and establish the Earth is not the true homeworld of mankind.

On an unrelated note, does anyone know what the appropriate abbreviation is for multiple artificial intelligences? I went with AI.s but that looks weird to me. Would it be AIs. ? or A.I.s? I spent like five whole minutes trying to google search this and couldn't find anything so I'm officially stumped.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to review, constructive criticism is always welcomed, but honestly I just really like getting the alerts it fills me with motivation to continue writing. Special thanks to everyone who still manages to stumble across this fic even after I haven't updated for a few months and thinks to drop an alert or review. You are the people who make me pause in the middle of the day and think I should write more of this.


	9. Chapter 8

Author's Note: Be forewarned, if references to sexual assault and their consequences are not your cup of tea when reading about a 30K primarch roflstomping his way through mass effect you may want to skip past the second section of this chapter when it starts talking about a character Kayla. I will provide a TL:DR summation at the end of the section so that you will not miss any plot relevant details. Feel free to leave a review criticizing how I handled that section if you think it could have been done better, it is the first time I have tackled such topics.

Chapter 8 Trouble in Torfan Finale

Mercy of the Shepherd

T-4 hours

Saren always felt strangely introspective whenever he found himself hanging from the ceiling of a cave planting explosives that would soon cause a cave in, that would leave him trapped in an underground fortress full of murders and sociopaths. The situation had gotten out of control to say the least. The pirates had withdrawn back to the starport to avoid further conflict with Torfan security. They had also sent a number of gifts to the governor here to apologize for the attacks, and then sent a great deal more shipments in as well. Supposedly they were more gifts. In actuality they contained weapons and armor and were being smuggled into the slave pens. The pirates had sided with Shepherd. He had his way off the moon and into Batarian space. Saren was out of options.

So here he was about to collapse the only real way out of this pirate base to seal Shepherd in until the Alliance-Hierarchy joint fleet arrived all the while wondering if he was an insane person or not. It was hard not to. Planning to bury oneself in an underground fortress full of the galaxy's worst scum was the sort of thing that forced a person to stop and take stock of where they were in life and just what they were doing.

The first time he had done so it had brought on a crisis of purpose. Forced him to reevaluate all the decisions that had led him to that point, question why he had made them and wonder if they had been the right ones to make. Why was he there? Why was he about to trap himself in an impossible situation where he had no choice but to fight and kill his way out? Was this really what he wanted to be doing with his life? Was this really what he had thought that he would be doing all those years previously when he first began to follow the path of a Spectre?

That moment hadn't bothered him too badly back then. It had just been an annoying buzz in the back of his head as he did what had to be done. The second time had been harder to deal with. The second time brought on an existential crisis as Saren realized he lived in a world where he had had to bury himself in an underground fortress full of murders twice.

What were the odds of that? The first time had seemed like a one in a million chance; a perfect storm of events where the only solution had been to trap the Carson gang underground while the main fleet closed in on them. For it to happen twice would've been a one in a billion chance to occur. That sort of thing was not supposed to happen in a sensibly run universe. After he killed his brother and learned what was buried beneath Palarven Temple his faith in the spirits had been shaken beyond recovery, but he had taken comfort in the thought of a rational understandable universe. But this shook his faith even in those such notions. A rational universe should not make one man go through these events twice. Even a random and chaotic universe should still follow the laws of averages, and as far as Saren knew a billion Spectre missions had not yet taken place so Saren shouldn't have stumbled in a one in a billion chance encounter.

The only explanation was that the universe was governed by some intelligent force, and whatever it was it just so happened to hate Saren and wanted him to suffer. He had been wrong all those years previously when he had turned his back on his faith. The Spirits were real, and they were vengeful and insane. This was a much harder revelation to deal with. It was one thing to think one faced an indifferent universe on one's own rather than a benevolent one. But it was doable. It was quite another to face a hostile and sadistic universe, especially in his line of work.

That had shaken him. Saren had frozen when the thought had dawned on him, detonators still half attached to a hundred and forty grams of chemicals that he had pressed to the ceiling containing the equivalent explosive force a half ton of TNT. He had hung there, from the ceiling for almost half an hour as he struggled to recenter himself and come to terms with the truth he now understood. Then the Krogan terrorists started joking over the radio about what they were going to do with the Salarian civilians they would have attacked that evening, and Saren had suppressed his mounting existential horror and gotten back to his job. Afterwards Saren had gotten very drunk, and then promised himself he would do all he could: to continue surviving in the universe out of spite.

Now here he was; a third time. Once was chance, twice was conspiracy, the third time though, this made him wonder if perhaps there was something wrong with him. Why did he keep doing this? Why did it still seem to him like this was a good plan? Why wouldn't he take the time to come up with some other idea? Did he secretly want for this to happen? Did he think that he deserved to be trapped in a room full of psychopaths?

That last thought gave Saren pause. Not for long though, he had learned his lessons from the last time and quickly went back to work even as his mind remained mostly focussed on his internal struggle. There was one advantage to having done this for a third time now, and that was he now could wire explosives into place while suspended from the ceiling faster than most any other person could do it while standing on the ground at a workbench.

So this then was the real question to face. Did he hate himself? Saren followed one rule in life, never kill a man without a good reason. But he had also found that there was almost always a good reason to kill someone if he looked hard enough. So did he have a good reason to kill Saren Arterius? Well he could be charitably described as something of a loose cannon of a Spectre if he was honest, and some of his critics had called him an outright egotistical mass murderer. To be certain he wasn't a normal Spectre by any means.

Not that there really was such a thing as a normal Spectre come to think of it. Spectres were not trained, they were discovered. Council agents would all but stumble upon people who could solve very unusual problems in unexpected but effective ways. Some Spectres flew into a planet, found out whatever social unrest or criminal kingpin was causing trouble but which couldn't be solved through conventional, legal, means and then proceed to solve the problem by whatever means were necessary.

Others were like Nihlus, they would show up on planets, in bars, office buildings, or secret meetings completely unannounced and unexpectedly and would then start just walking about or asking innocent questions of normal people. Sooner or later someone would panic and run, or think this was their last chance to 'do the right thing' and talk, or try and lie to throw them off the scent. Then Nihlus would start chasing people or digging into things until either he found someone he could shoot or arrest to make the whole problem just stop. Or he would uncover a conspiracy so vast, running so deep into institutions people had thought were incorruptible, that the Council itself would have to call him in, and tell him to stop before he threw three or more planets into violent revolution. That had happened to him twice. Saren respected him for it, both his determination to uncover the truth and his tactful handling of the truth when it had proven too dangerous. The Council was still trying to quietly resolve the second one through a series of dismissals, banishments and assassinations that would end the corruption without the galaxy losing faith in their own governments.

Saren had even known one Asari Spectre who simply opened a bar on Omega. She used her Spectre status to get access to cheap but high quality intoxicants as well as the still illegal but not so harmful narcotics, and then got the worst scum in the galaxy drunk or high enough that she could work them for information and pass the knowledge on to others to make the arrest. She didn't kill any more people than she had to as a normal small business owner on Omega, and she never brought down her targets herself. But the information she had given to others had put enough criminals and terrorists in jail or in the dirt to crew several dreadnaughts. Spirits only knew how she still kept a low enough profile that her bar hadn't been deemed cursed or unlucky as people realized how many of her former clients ended up dead or in jail. Or for that matter how she had managed to keep a business going in the chaos of Omega for the better part of a decade. Saren suspected the answers to both questions might have to do with her acting as one of Aria T'Loak's occasional bedmates, but Saren would never voice such suspicions out loud.

But Saren, Saren didn't operate in a region of space where the challenge to maintaining law was finding the bad guys and what they were up to. No finding pirates was easy for Saren, it was finding some law to uphold that was the tricky bit. More often than not, Saren was the one making the law, and it was the kind of law that came from the barrel of a gun. Almost every planet in the Verge was the centerpiece of some kind of illegal activity. The question wasn't 'what were they doing?' but 'is it worth stopping them?' In the Verge crime really was the only way for a colony to potentially grow to the point that it wouldn't have to commit crime to sustain itself. Some crimes were too great for such growth to justify them, and so Saren condemned dozens to death and hundreds to poverty inorder to prevent worse things from infecting nearby stable systems.

Saren wasn't an investigator or patrol man, or a guardian. He was a gardener, pruning back the worst of the weeds so that perhaps in time, something worth guarding might actually grow. So he reigned in the back regions of space just like the petty warlords of the Terminus did.

So did he have a good reason to kill Saren Arterius: murderer, terrorist, saboteur of the hopes and dreams of countless worlds, defiler and highway man to the most despondent and desperate wretches the galaxy had ever produced? Did he have a good reason to kill Saren Arterius: kinslayer? Yes. Yes he supposed he did.

But killing himself wouldn't solve anything. The Verge still needed to be held in check by someone. Whoever the Council sent out to replace him would have to do pretty much the same thing that he had for all these years. Another innocent, wide eyed dreamer full of potential and hope; for this nightmare of a galaxy to beat down into an apathetic, black souled killer. No, better that someone like him, already damned by his own hand, to do the dark work that must be done out here. Let someone like Nihlus actually do the work that made the galaxy a better place, Saren would do what kept it from becoming worse.

"Hey there friend?" A Batarian voice called up from beneath him, as several bright lights illuminated the section of ceiling he was working on. "Mind telling us what you're doing up there blue boy?"

Saren cursed to himself. Hadn't he learned this lesson from last time? He had let himself get drawn so deep into his moral and philosophical musing that he had failed to notice his omnitool trying to buzz him and alert him that his proximity sensors had been triggered. He raised his hands above his head and as they passed his helmet he triggered his visor to filter out the spotlights and took a glance as the troops on the ground.

"Well I was setting up some explosives to level this place," Saren said jokingly. There were eight soldiers altogether marked with the red stripes of Torfan security. Most were carrying assault rifles, two had sub machine guns and ignited omnitools marking them as tech specialists. There was no cover around them, but they stood in a circle of light from one of the lamps in the ceiling, and all around them was darkness. The situation was not ideal but he had been in far worse.

"We would rather you not," the group's spokesman responded. He had no mark of rank but stood in the center of one of two echelons lined up against him, the spot Saren would've expected a corporal or sergeant to hold. "If you could come down here we could talk things over and not have to kill you."

"Sounds fine to me," Saren answered, and with a specific twist and flick of his wrist he triggered his omnitool and set events in motion. First, a small holographic projector fell from his pack and created an image of himself detached from the ceiling and falling to the floor. At the same time he engaged a stealth field generator and blended into the rock around him. Additionally he began to jam local communication. Finally, as his image descened, Saren detached himself and threw a biotic push into the ceiling, catapulting him back into the darkness. With a second biotic flare to slow his descent, he landed behind the assembled security guards shortly after his holographic image landed in front of them.

The moment the image landed the assembled guards, who had been hesitant to fire at a pack of explosives embedded in the roof of the tunnel, unloaded their weapons into the illusion before them. The hail of accelerator rounds passed right through the hologram, disturbing the light as they passed but in such a way that it looked like the rounds were striking a shield around the target instead. Saren remained motionless behind the guards as his biotic energy recharged and he readied his weapons. The first was a Thunder assault rifle held one handed by his prosthetic arm which had been upgraded with shock absorbers and a targeting system linked to his helmet visor and an M9 Tempest submachine gun, held in his dominant hand and fired like normal. One by one, the guards' weapons quickly overheated and the fire went dead.

Saren scoffed at the lack of fire discipline that left the whole patrol unarmed and vulnerable for the next few seconds. First he formed a singularity in the midst of both groups, then quickly detonated it with a biotic push. The explosion killed two of the guards and scattered the rest. Saren fired an overcharge into the largest group of three to his left, stripping them of their shields and leaving them exposed. Saren turned his assault rifle on them and with three short bursts, put rounds through their heads and left all three dead.

A second group of two, to his right, began to get to their feet. Saren caught them in a biotic lift, then turned both his guns on them and began to focus down the shields of each guard as they flailed about helplessly in the air. The final enemy, the original speaker of the group, got to his feet and leveled his rifle at Saren. The Spectre holstered his submachine gun and threw a special flash grenade into the air which flooded the tunnel with ultraviolet and infrared light, blinding his last opponent who had tried to peer into the darkness around Saren with the night vision setting on his helmet visor. While the man clutched at his face and threw his helmet to the ground the shields failed on his last two compatriots and Saren cut them down.

Turning to face his last enemy, Saren ejected the experimental thermal clip, a kind of powerful heat sink, from his rifle. The glowing hot tube fell to the ground, taking with it the excess heat that had built up on Saren gun, leaving him free to shoot normally against his last foe. Saren fired a set of short bursts at the man, chipping away at his shields while the man fired wildly into the darkness aiming at the muzzle flashes of Saren's rifle. The man training betrayed him though. He assumed Saren held his gun with both hands, pressed to his chest to control recoil, and thus fired at the center of the muzzle flashes thinking that was his enemies center of mass. But Saren held his gun to the side, one handed, and thus was only occasionally clipped by stray shots from his enemy, while he was free to strike precisely at his foe. Inevitably, the guard's shields failed while Saren's still held at three quarters full. Saren put one last round through the guard's head and ended the fire fight.

Saren smirked at his downed opponents and checked his omnitool for security alerts to see how long he had before reinforcements arrived, but he saw none on either Torfan's main or outer networks. That brought him up short. If the guards were spooked enough by all the attacks to send a patrol out along the tunnels that joined its inner and outer bases, they should be following their security protocols to the letter. That meant ten man squads, and at the first sign of trouble, two drop back to the nearest checkpoint to report in, on what was happening. Saren glanced down the tunnel and sure enough a security check in station had been raised about five hundred meters away from him, where two observers should be frantically calling for support right now. But he could see no one in them, even if he zoomed in with optics in his helmet visor.

This didn't make any sense, even if the patrol was certain they could handle one Turian they didn't know for certain if he was working with anyone else. They should've kept someone back to observe. Something was off. Eight bodies, but patrols were ten men standard. They had sent two back to keep watch, but there had been no alarms, so those two must be dead as well. Nihlus was at the other end of the base trying to figure out how many of the SIU were still alive. That just left….

Saren spun completely around releasing a biotic push as he turned. The effect of the push was spread out all around him so it was weaker than normal, but it still caught the man. There was the tell tale crackle of an overloaded stealth field, and back against the wall at the edge of the light the Giant appeared.

"Shepherd," Saren greeted as he trained both his guns on the Elysian genetic freak. "Good to finally meet you."

The giant nodded back and stepped into the light. He was taller than Saren had expected, perhaps three point five meters as opposed to the three point three meters his dossier described. Was the man still growing then? That was absurd. He was well past the point when the effects of gigantism should've crippled him. He did cut a truly imposing figure because of it, further helped by the new suit of armor he had acquired for himself.

It looked like a classic suit of platemale made from brass with very faint scroll work on it written in Batarian letters. Saren recognized that the plates came from the wall paneling from the VIP lounges that had been given to the SIU. No doubt the plate was almost purely decorative then, used to make the armor seem like a single unified suit. Beneath it there were probably pieces of several different armor sets that had been jury rigged together into a suit large enough for Shepherd to wear. The plate itself also covered any seams or awkward joints left behind by its creation, hiding any weak points from his potential adversaries. There was also a helmet maglocked to his belt. It was covered in silver metal works to hide the fact that it too had been cobbled together from at least two, maybe three regular helmets. The metal work looked like the top half of a face complete with a pair of eyes above the main visor and ridges across the forehead. Saren guessed that when Shepherd wore it, with his own eyes visible through the visor, it would look a lot like a Batarian skull. Well Saren never could accuse the man of being subtle.

As for the Giant himself, only his face could be seen. It seemed overly large to Saren, though in proportion to his body it was about what he would expect. Saren couldn't help but compare it to a regular human face. It seemed flat, too wide in many respects taken on its own. Yet at the same time, his well defined cheekbones and jawline along with a total lack of any body fat made his face seem narrow compared to the rest of his body. His eyes were slightly sunken, so that with the spot light above him, part of his face seemed cast in shadow and his eyes were not visible. Saren knew from his dossier that the man's eyes were grey with specks of blue in them, such that depending on how the light caught them they might appear like stone one moment, or a raging storm the next.

His fur was a blazing red color. His, what did they call it again? Yes his hair, the fur on the top of his head, was cut short in the kind of utilitarian style favored by most human soldiers. The fur on his face itself, his beard Saren believed it was called, was more bushy. It ran down both sides of his head from his hair and covered his chin and upper lip. Saren believed that made this a full beard. The beard was long enough to make the man seem much older than he actually was, but not so long that it could be easily grabbed or caught on something.

All told, his face looked like it had been carved from rock by the blows of a heavy hammer. As if the trials of life had beaten him down and into shape through long suffering. It gave him the look of great age and experience that he could never have earned living sheltered in a military base surrounded by loved ones and friends. Yet even knowing all that Saren couldn't help but feel a sense of respect for this man, a wariness that the man before him knew more than he could guess or prepare for.

"And you must be Saren Arterius." The giant responded, "I knew the Council would send a Spectre after me sooner or later but I hadn't expected a response so quickly or for them to send someone as decorated as you. It seems I underestimated Valern and Sparatus, a mistake I will not make again."

"I had not thought my fame had reached even Elysium," Saren responded, keeping his weapons trained on Shepherd as he suppressed his surprise. "What brings you all the way out here giant? Don't you have an uprising to start soon?"

"Your partner leaned a little too hard on Zaeed." Shepherd explained seeming just a little smug as he did. "Turns out he had some friends amongst the pirate captains here. Tried to bum a ride off the moon from one of them. To be fair to the man he didn't just come out and say that there were Spectres in the base planning to free the Elysians, but he implied it clearly enough that the captain came to me asking if I was working with you."

"Should've shot that man when I had the chance." Saren muttered to himself, "Still doesn't explain how you knew to come out to this tunnel to find me. I know I haven't been that sloppy moving around the base."

"You've been fantastic at moving unseen. I'm very impressed." Shepherd complimented, "My cyber warfare team could only find a single brief clip of you showing your face on any of the security footage we've been able to gather, and that was from hours ago. That was enough for the pirates to recognize you though, they're quite scared of you for some reason."

"Well I have made a career out of killing them." Saren admitted.

"That would do it." Shepherd recognized. "But by the time we had a name to put to you, I was already enroute here. As soon as I heard that a Spectre might be present, I immediately asked myself, what was the worst thing you could possibly do right now? And that of course would be to collapse this tunnel and seal us all in the pirate base."

"You haven't given me any other choice you know." Saren lamented, "I was all prepared to work with you to drive off the pirates and keep everyone safe until rescue arrived. But you just had to go ahead and accelerate everything, driving blindly towards your mad war with the Hegemony. This is my only real choice now to stop you."

"I'm kind of surprised you haven't tried to just shoot me." Shepherd wondered, "From what I've heard of you, that would be your usual method."

"The Council wants you to live through this if at all possible." Saren explained, still holding his rifle steady to aim at Shepherd's head, "Not that I'm so sure that shooting you would actually stop you."

"I am an awfully determined person." Shepherd admitted.

"Which is why you have to be stopped here." Saren concluded.

"I suppose that brings us to the crux of the matter then." Shepherd seemed slightly saddened at that.

"So it does." Saren agreed, face set, rifle steady, omnitool opened and primed to set the bomb above his head off and bury him alive under a hundred tons of stone.

"The practice of slavery is brutal and barbaric." Shepherd declared beginning to slowly circle the Turian Spectre. "It inflicts untold suffering on the galaxy and it is holding back the Hegemony. It needs to end. I will end it."

"The Citadel Council," Saren retorted, walking opposite Shepherd holding the giant steady in his sights. "Can not stand idly by while one of its member states is threatened and attacked. I am bound by oath and honor to defend the Hegemony no matter how distasteful I find their practices."

"And yet the Council will not lift a finger to defend the people of other states when they are attacked by Batarian funded pirates." Shepherd pressed.

"There is no evidence-" Saren began the standard response.

"Do not try and stand there and tell me such a barefaced lie." Shepherd interrupted. "Will you, you of all people and of all Spectres honestly expect me to believe that never in all your years of hunting pirates you've ever come across so much as a single credit that couldn't be traced back to the Hegemon himself?"

"Crime cannot be eliminated entirely from the galaxy." Saren deflected, "And corruption neither. The Hegemony may support some piracy. Many of the Asari republics provide the bulk of the budget for the Eclypse gang. The Salarians gave us the Krogan, the Quarians unleashed the Geth. And humanity has brought us the Blue Suns and Cerberus as well. I dare say if I hunted long enough I could find that a good amount of money in Cerberus's coffers comes from generous Alliance donations. Is the Council to hold all of humanity responsible for the actions of a few insane radicals?"

"Humanity is not a culture built on the back of terrorism." Shepherd answered, "And the Alliance has aided Council Spectres in hunting and fighting Cerberus in the past. The Hegemony doesn't just support some piracy, it is a system that cannot survive without it. The whole of Batarian civilization was made in blatant defiance of Citadel law and treaty."

"The Council was well aware of Batarian culture when the Hegemony was admitted to the Citadel." Saren explained, "Exceptions were made for them in those laws and treaties. They have the right to pursue their own culture and ideals."

"And when they force their ideals on others and take free men as slaves?" Shepherd pressed.

"Then we will hunt those individuals responsible for such crimes." Saren asserted. "We will not tear the whole system down because of a few failures within it."

"Those failures are part of the structure of the culture itself." Shepherd declared. "People are not taken as slaves by accident. They are not bought and traded by well meaning if ignorant people. The system is working as intended when it reaches out and violates Citadel law and the freedom of the galaxy. And will continue to do so until it is changed on a fundamental level."

"It is not your right to decide what the Batarian people can and cannot do." Saren demanded.

"It is not their right to make a free man a slave." Shepherd insisted. "If they have the right to reach out, then I have the right to go in after them."

"The Council will not allow such escalation." Saren stated as determined as ever. "What happened on Elysium was a tragedy. It does not justify a war between the Alliance and the Hegemony."

"By the honor of my clan, and the names of all my children and brothers," Shepherd swore. "I pledge to you that the Alliance has nothing to do with what I have set out to accomplish. I act on my own, to reform the Hegemony, not to destroy or subjugate it. May my face and those of all my children be bleached white if it is not so."

"A heavy oath." Saren admitted more than a bit taken aback. It was about as heavy an oath as a Turian could swear. To be barefaced, stripped of clan and heritage left adrift in the world without home or spirit to guide, was a terrible fate to risk over anything, even an oath. To risk the same fate for all ones descendents as well that was something else entirely.

"I don't know how much weight it carries though," Saren continued, "Coming from a human. Prove it."

"How am I supposed to do that without overthrowing a government?" Shepherd asked.

"I am interested in seeing if you can." Saren dismissed, "If you prefer we could just start shooting each other now, you're the one who wants to talk."

"Alright," Shepherd said more than a little exasperated. "Look at it this way: if I wanted to start a war between the Hegemony and the Alliance I wouldn't be wasting my time with a slave revolt. I would just wait until the Hegemon himself comes here in just a few days and get a recording of him buying Elysians as slaves from the pirates. Maybe get a few of my pirate friends to loudly boast about how they captured those people from Alliance space so that there is no doubt that the Hegemon knew where they came from. Then send that video to every major video hosting site and news service in the galaxy along with maybe a few interviews with the slaves here who are being used as whores or drug pushers so that there is no doubt about what will happen to those people once they are taken back to Batarian space."

Saren remained silent for a few moments. Struck dumb by the thought of the outrage and fury that would erupt if such a video went public. Mankind would lash out at that. The Asari would do nothing to stop them and without their support the Hierarchy would hesitate to intervene. The Hegemony would be overwhelmed and with their territory and resources at their disposal the Alliance would become a power to rival the whole Citadel.

"So why aren't you doing that?" Saren asked, "That would accomplish everything you wanted."

"Because it wouldn't really work." Shepherd declared, "Just like it wouldn't have really worked if the Hierarchy had broken the Hegemony back when they first joined. Yes, the Hegemony could be put down, slavery could be abolished, the caste system to most likely too, and within a year maybe about a tenth of the former slaves would've been lynched. If change is forced from without, then the symbols of that change, no matter how good and necessary they might have been, become symbols of how powerless a community truly is. Those freed slaves would be a sign of how little power the Hegemony really had. How little power the Batarians really have in the vast and uncaring universe we live in. They would hate them, mistreat them and kill them if given half a chance to strike back against the powers they can't directly resist. Stopping them from doing so would require a nightmarish amount of repression on the part of the Alliance occupiers, all of which would only deepen the hatred and lead to centuries of conflict and division. This is not a problem that can be solved by government force."

"Yes that's the whole point!" Saren shouted half confused. "What you are doing no matter how well meaning you can't bring about lasting change through force. That is the whole point of the Citadel!"

"Change can not be brought about through external force." Shepherd corrected, "The Citadel was right not to directly intervene against the Hegemony, at the time. But its continued inaction has only condemned it. Say for instance, if the Citadel banned the sale of weapons from the Batarian State Arms corporation until it had reformed its treatment of its slave workforce? While at the same time, lessening tariffs and restrictions on industries with more positive reputations, or even those that didn't employ slaves at all. The Batarians would've complained and cried racist, but given time, so long as the Citadel didn't try to brow beat them over the issue, the Batarians themselves might eventually admit that perhaps State Arms goes too far and implement their own reforms. If those changes are then welcomed with open arms and rewarded with increased economic opportunities then that change, though technically brought about by external force, would be associated with their own ideas and their own prosperity. If one had the patience to play the long game on this issue, then in the centuries that have passed since the Hegemony first joined the entire culture could've been completely reformed by now."

"If you know such methods can work." Saren said on the attack, "Why haven't you implemented them? Such gradual reforms might take time, but they are a far better outcome than a civil war!"

"The Citadel knows such methods can work." Shepherd deflected, "But it has refused to implement them. For centuries it has accepted the status quo. One day I will bring needed change to the Citadel, but not now. Right now I can't. I don't have the power to make a bureaucracy mired in stagnation listen to me and reform. Even if I could though, spending centuries to bring about a gradual reform while tens of millions die in deplorable conditions, is unacceptable when I can bring about more immediate change now at the cost of perhaps only a few tens of thousands."

"Using a method you have already admitted will not work!" Saren exclaimed.

"Using the Alliance to overthrow the Hegemony would not work." Shepherd declared once more, sounding slightly exasperated. "I will use the Hegemony to overthrow the Hegemony. I am not invading the Batarians. I am planting the seeds of a full blown revolution."

"Yes because there are so many Batarians in your army right now." Saren mocked.

"Effectively yes." Shepherd agreed.

"..." Saren stared incredulously at the giant, his subvocals essentially calling the man insane.

"The slaves were made a part of the Batarian's system," Shepherd insisted, "The moment they were dragged from their homes and brought here. They have not been sold yet, but they are, everyone of them, already slaves. As surely as every Batarian born into bondage is. They are part of the Hegemony now, and when they reject it, when they cast off the yoke that has been forced on them, they prove to every Batarian alive that they can do the same. And once I have proved that on a few worlds, they will be the minority of the army I will create. Batarian slaves will also be a minority of that army truth be told. Revolutions are the means by which the middle class usurps the upper class through the rage of the lower class. This is a fact of history and will be true here as it was in the past. The galaxy will remember this as the war that ended slavery. But the Batarians will remember it as the war that ended the caste system."

"The two systems are intertwined you see." Shepherd further explained, "So long as slavery exists the lower castes can feel a sense of pride in what they are even as they live in destituion and poverty. The man without food can live so long as he has pride after all. And the sight of that poverty fills the slaves with dread. It makes them desperate for the good pleasure of their masters that they can continue to live in at least some kind of comfort. For the man without pride can live so long as he has food. But by destroying both systems at once, by clearing the way for both slaves and the lowest castes to actually make something of themselves while also allowing the middle class the freedom to chase their own ambitions, I will give them both pride and prosperity. The Batarians will look upon the freed man and not see a symbol of how change was forced down their throats, but a brother in arms who has pulled himself up even as they themselves have."

Saren remained silent for a moment, he stopped walking, and he lowered his guns to his side. The possibilities ran through his mind. He saw the battles that would have to be won. He saw ways to win them. He saw a thousand ways it could all go wrong. He saw a dozen ways it could all go right. And he could guess at just what kind of civilization might emerge from the ashes when it was all said and done.

"If that worked." Saren stated, his subvocals making it plain what he thought the chances of it working were, "You would make the Hegemony into a power that would truly rival the Alliance."

"I would make them into a power that truly rivaled any of the Council races." Shepherd recognized. As he stopped walking as well, by this point the two had taken opposite sides of the tunnel. Shepherd stood before the main base, the slave revolt waiting to happen, while Saren stood before the star port and eventual escape.

"Why?" Saren asked after a time. "Why do so much for a people not your own? Don't tell me you couldn't do as much if not more for the Alliance?"

"Because they are broken, and the Alliance is not." Shepherd explained. "The Alliance is doing just fine on its own. It will probably have a spot on the Council in about fifty years or so. I could help that process along, in fact I have plans to. But millions of humans will not die needlessly during the few years it will take me to set the Hegemony straight. Whereas the longer the current Hegemony goes on the closer it marches to oblivion. Left to their own devices the whole thing may very well collapse into a civil war far more bloody and violent than anything I have planned in a few centuries or so."

"And you care because?" Saren invited the man to continue.

"Well," Shepherd finally answered after a bit of a pause. "It's because the sight of it frustrates me. It's just so much wasted potential! It would be one thing if the Batarians were actually improving in some way, but to see them throwing away so much with such reckless abandon. It's infuriating! I can't ignore it really. I can see all the ways it could be better. I can see all the ways I can make it better. If I choose not to do anything about it, then I am somewhat complicit in it all wasting away. I can't stand the thought of that. It might be something of an obsession on my part. But it's one I can't rid myself of."

"You would make a great Spectre." Saren judged after a time as he maglocked his guns back in place, but kept his omnitool active and ready to detonate.

"Of course I would." Shepherd agreed, full of self confidence. "I would be great at anything I put my hand to."

"It takes far more than competency to make a good Spectre." Saren dismissed. "It's a question of mindset really. A true Spectre knows that it is the responsibility of every citizen of the galaxy to not simply pass on what they have inherited but to improve it as well. A true Spectre also knows that the system they work to uphold is flawed, and always will be flawed and that to properly uphold that system and improve it sometimes it is necessary to step outside the system and catch those things that have slipped through the cracks. You have that mindset Shepherd. You are a man who sees what needs to be done as well as what should be done. Your only flaw is that you see the cracks more clearly than you see the system itself. We have a responsibility to pass on what we have intact as well as improved. Right now you risk the whole system itself for the sake of what you see as right. Given time and chance to work with the system as much as outside of it, I believe you would more clearly see how to both fix what falls without as well as uphold what is sheltered within. You would be one of the all time greats."

For perhaps the first time in the conversation, the giant seemed stunned by Saren's words. He remained silent for a time, eyes down cast and introspective. Perhaps the man was rethinking some of what he was planning. Or perhaps the man was simply reassuring himself that what he was doing was right. Saren admitted to himself that perhaps in many ways what he was doing was right. If the Batarians existed in isolation then perhaps Saren would've stood right alongside this man, this Shepherd, and helped him make right one the many things wrong in this galaxy. But the Batarians didn't exist in isolation. And whatever the man claimed there was still a balance of power in the wider galaxy to consider. The system of peaceful negotiation and reform that the Citadel represented was the symbol of peace and cooperation that the galaxy relied upon. Such a system could not be so openly flaunted. Saren had his orders even now.

"You could be the hero in all of this you know." Saren pleaded during the stretching silence. "The Alliance and the Hierarchy are on their way to rescue everyone here. Work with me Shepherd. We can save everyone here, bring down Torfan, reform the pirates to end the fighting over the verge. You could go home to the Alliance, a celebrated hero. You could come to the Citadel and be welcomed and praised by every race in the galaxy for not just saving so many lives but ending a war before it could even begin. With that fame, with those contacts you could forge, with the favors you could earn from just stopping things here and now, you could become the force for reform you want to be within the Citadel. The Council could not ignore how close it had let the galaxy come to open warfare over this, and with that grim realization as leverage you could bring about the very same peaceful changes you had spoken of before. You could end slavery without firing a shot, and set yourself up to bring about even greater changes and even more good to the galaxy at large. It doesn't have to end in violence."

"That is a path," Shepherd recognized. "But only one path. And neither a sure path nor a quick one. I can pull back from here and await the Council's good graces. Or I can press forward and become a force that they cannot afford to ignore. For the sake of those who would die while I waited on peace to grind out the changes needed, and for sake of even greater things that I have planned yet. I cannot afford to wait much longer. Chance and fate have given me an opportunity here not simply to act, but to act sooner and more decisively than I had thought possible before. I can not pass it up."

"No." Saren rejected. "I will not allow a man, with this kind of potential, to throw away his future as a terrorist. I will make you the hero in this story whether you want to be or not!"

"My mind and path are set Saren." Shepherd declared, "You cannot turn me aside."

"I can and I will." Saren said, bringing his omnitool up to his chest; a large red detonate button clearly visible on its top. "You have come too late Shepherd. The charges in the ceiling are already set. If I detonate them here you will remain trapped until the Alliance fleet arrives to rescue you. Trapped in Torfan with the slavers and their security guards, you will have no choice but to hunt them down and kill them all. Hundreds will die, digging that scum out of their final defenses. For the sake of the people you have to come to rescue, give me your word to end things here and we can work together to save everyone."

"If you detonate those explosives," Shepherd said with grim determination. "You will condemn tens of thousands of civilians to a slow and agonizing death."

To punctuate his final statement, Shepherd reached into a pouch on the side of his armor and threw something at Saren's feet. It was a series of electrical components wired into a split valve and section of piping. Saren studied the strange device for a time. He was no electrical engineer, but he was a man who had spent a good amount of time working and living on various spacecraft so he did know his way around basic repair and maintenance procedures. If he had to guess he would say it was a safety regulator on a coolant system, but how could such a thing be related to everyone here dying a slow death? Unless….

"Is that from Torfan's fission reactor?" He asked the mad giant before him with no small amount of dread in his voice.

"It is one of the reactor's six thermal regulators," Shepherd confirmed to Saren's mounting horror, "Only one of which is still working. That, combined with a few other modifications I've made to the power plant, will cause it to melt down in about six hours or so. The technicians who could halt it will be its first victims when they accidently vent the excess heat from the fissile materials into their own air ventilation systems. Radiation levels in the main base will begin to rise within the next eight hours. In twelve everyone still on Torfan will have received a lethal dose of it. In twenty no one will be left here alive. More than enough time to get everyone out safe and sound. Provided this path to the starport is still open."

"Are you insane?" Saren asked in desperation, "When did you even have time to do this? You've been running around fighting and killing since you got here!"

"I had an hour or two to kill while negotiating with the pirate captains here." Shepherd dismissed, "It's easy for me to talk and work at the same time, the timing worked out well for me as well."

"If your army gets bogged down in the fighting, you could get all of them killed!" Saren pressed.

"Torfan security couldn't bog us down if we were fighting in a swamp." Shepherd retorted with no small amount of scorn.

"Not them true," Saren relented, he had seen Asari militia who spent half their shifts patrolling bars looking for someone to shack up with who were still better trained and equipped then what passed for soldiers around here. "But what about the Blue Suns or the Krogan? And don't forget the SIU are still active here they won't let you escape unscathed."

"The Krogan have been on my side since before I landed." Shepherd claimed without a hint of deception in his voice. "Of the five hundred members of the SIU who escaped Elysium alive only a hundred still remain on this station, and those I've left witless and panicked. In the general confusion of the uprising they will hesitate to act fearing further ambush. When they do move they will likely try to block our main escape route out here. Here I will face them supported by the most combat capable of the Elysians I can find. They will not slow us for long. And from the sound of things the Suns are working for you Spectres so we come back to the main point. The only one truly threatening the lives of the Elysians right now is you Saren. So kindly step out of my way and we can all live. Or follow your sense of duty and senselessly kill thousands of innocent people."

"You won't allow your ambitions to end here." Saren declared, "If I cave in these tunnels you will have no choice but to fix the reactors otherwise your whole army will die down here."

"Part of it will die yes," Shepherd admitted, "But not all of it. I can still evacuate the children and about ten thousand or so fighting men out through the Governor's private hanger in time. This will actually make my plans easier to carry out. My corps of soldiers will be full of fury for vengeance and so long as you don't live to spread the truth the deaths of the civilians will be blamed on the governor who is known to have the power to remotely overload the base's reactors in the event his power is threatened. The outrage over such gruesome deaths will seamlessly transfer to the Hegemony as well and ignite a public outcry against slavery making my revolution more palatable and allowing me to recruit revolutionaries from wider Citadel space. But as useful as such a situation might be, I would prefer to keep casualties to a minimum. So again I ask Saren: would you kindly step out of my way and let me do what we both know to be right?"

Saren hesitated. Some people had in the past criticized him as a man for whom the ends justify the means. Saren never understood that criticism. Surly no act could be considered just if it led to undo suffering. Could people really be so naive as to think that the universe was so kind as to guarantee that so long as a person always did the right thing only good things could result from it? Grand defeats often stemmed from sound strategy blindly followed. Or what was that human saying? Good intentions leading to hell and all that.

Usually what people really meant with their accusations was that Saren thought any act was right so long as his goals were noble or necessary. But that thinking also seemed backwards to Saren. Every act taken in the pursuit of a goal however noble was a debt one would take upon their back. Every act of suffering delivered in the name of the greater good must be balanced by a tangible benefit that someone would actually receive. To take such sins onto himself for the sake of creating good that would surpass all the wrong he had done was part of the essence of being a Spectre.

Could Saren kill fifty thousand people in the name of preventing a war that would destroy millions of lives? Yes. Without hesitation he would bear the weight of such an unthinkable choice. But would such a slaughter actually do any good? The governor's escape route was still open. Even if Shepherd was the only survivor here the flames of revolution and war would spread. Nihlus was in the wrong place to reach the escape chamber before Shepherd or his supporters could secure it. He might be able to fight or sneak his way past the giant and bring down that path as well, but now that the Turian stood before this genetic killing machine he doubted his prospects of surviving such a fight.

If Shepherd escaped this revolution would continue whether he had an army or not. If his army ended up even more fanatic the damage it might inflict on the Batarians would be overwhelming. Could Saren carry through with an unspeakable act that would only make things worse?

"There is an alternative." Shepherd offered sensing Saren's hesitation. "If you are more willing to follow the spirit of your orders rather than the letter of them. Then it should be possible to keep the Hegemony out of Alliance control by getting out ahead of my revolution and ensuring that the new Batarian government that comes about is strong enough to remain independent."

"Are you asking me to join you?" Saren asked full of incredulity. "Do you really expect a Citadel Spectre to try and subvert the sovereignty of a member state?"

"I expect a Citadel Spectre to fight corruption and protect the helpless people of the galaxy!" Shepherd insisted. "The whole Batarian system is full of corruption and is in need of a thorough cleansing. If you Spectres tackled the Hegemony and held it to the same standards you hold the Alliance or the Hierarchy to there wouldn't be much of the government left. It would be a defacto revolution."

"There is a substantial difference between the gradual pruning and correcting of a government's undeniable problems and the outright trying to overthrow a functional nation state!"

"No amount of gradual pruning would do the Batarians any good." Shepherd pressed. "Correct one area and the others will soon drag it down. Which is why the Spectres don't bother to waste their time with it. But we can solve it all in one go. And if the Batarians themselves rise up to reform their government then it would practically be your responsibility as a Spectre to help them create this new and better system in a way that is as quick and efficient as possible."

"You've been building towards this pitch of yours this entire time haven't you?" Saren accused. "Can you really be so arrogant as to think you can add a Spectre to your arsenal just like that?"

"You're damn right I want a Spectre on my side!" Shepherd all but shouted. "I've got the numbers and the moral to carry this through but building up the veterancy to form the kind of elite team that can carry out high value tasks will take time. A man of your skills however could not only quickly build up such a team but complete much of what I would need them for on your own. Plus your presence will add a much greater sense of legitimacy to what we must do simplifying our work considerably. You might even be able to get the Citadel off my back long enough to actually do some good in all this."

"You really think any Spectre could bring themselves to betray the Citadel and all it stands for to work under a madman like you?" Saren responded sarcastically.

"I think you of all Spectres will do what has to be done. The Citadel is an institution of peace, but it is only able to be so, because of men like you who are out here dealing with the more irrational parts of the galaxy. That is all I'm asking you to do. Let the Citadel keep its hands clean of this mess. Instead you and I can get down to this wretched business and we can present a better Hegemony to the galaxy that is rational and ready to deal with the Citadel peacefully."

Saren held silent for a time. Once or twice his hands twitched slightly, almost moving to strike the key that would bury him alive and end this all. But he didn't. What would that accomplish? The universe was out to get him and sometimes its weight could not be held back by anyone. In times like those all he could do was try and ride the wave of history and try to help and save as many people as he could.

"If I were to sign on to this mad plan of yours." He said at last, his tone one of incredulity, his subvocals just daring the other man to try and lord his victory over him. "Which one of us would be in charge? Neither of us is a man used to working under another."

"As much as I respect your experience," Shepherd said in all seriousness, though Saren almost swore he detected just the barest hint of subvocal triumph in the insufferable man. "I've prepared for this too long to leave it in the hands of someone who lacks the resolve to carry it through."

"I lack resolve!?" Saren shouted back.

"I'm sorry which one of us here was unwilling to kill tens of thousands of people to advance our goals?" Shepherd openly gloated in response. "So yeah I dare say you lack resolve."

"I can still collapse this tunnel if you want me to." Saren dead panned. "I might just do that anyway to shut you up."

"I get your point, I get your point." Shepherd waved him down, "I think a partnership might be better for us both in the long run."

"Agreed." Saren gave in and shut down his omnitool and joined the Giant at his side as they made their way back to the main base. "What's our first move?"

"Our pieces are already in motion. The barmaids and prostitutes are starting to poison the off duty security guards. Our cyber experts have taken control of their central dispatch and are guiding their patrols away from the slave pens and the weapon caches the pirates have set up for us.

"At this point," Shepherd concluded quite casually, "All that is left to do is show up and start killing people."

* * *

T-3 hours

Kayla tried to smile at the mirror and think of her daughter. She thought about her daughter's bright smile, the look of pure joy that covered her face whenever she finally grasped the solution to some math problem that had given her real trouble. She thought about how her almost purple complexion would light up to nearly teal whenever she teased her daughter about her old friend Alara whom she had known since they were both newborns, and was starting to develop a crush on. She thought about her daughter could lose herself while trying dig into the mechanism of some discarded piece of tech and try to figure out how to make it work again, how completely oblivious to the world she would become until she finally cracked its secrets and then all but bounce in place as she reassembled it and got it working. She thought about how she beamed with pride every time she sold one of those recovered pieces of tech and got her mama enough money that they could enjoy the high life for a night or two, or could finally afford some new text book she needed to continue what little education she could get on this goddess forsaken moon.

She did not think about how her wonderful amazing daughter had been born. Kayla stamped down on that memory as hard as she could whenever it came up. That one horrible night. All the nights had been bad in the brothels. But none had ever been as bad as when that one pirate captain had come down after hitting it big and decided to treat his officer core not just to a night of drunken whoring, but also to force the Asari girls in the brothel to meld with them as well. She did not think about how she had been drugged that night. She did not think about how she had been held at gunpoint that night. She did not think about how her mind had been forced open and all her life, all her emotions, all her very being had been laid bare before the wretched soul of a man she could never bring herself to ever even remember the face of. She did not think about what she had seen of that man's life either, of all the people he had killed, of all the girls he had taken by force over the years, of how he whooped and hollered for joy every time a merchant ship cracked and its crew were thrown into the depths of space to die screaming. And she most certainly did not think about how the man had looked down on her when it was all over, and had known just what it was he had done to her, how he had violated not just her body but her very mind and soul as well. She never ever thought about how in that moment the man had laughed at her, or of how satisfied he was to have broken her down to such a state. She never thought about any of that. Not even once.

What Kayla couldn't stop herself from thinking about was how the pimps in the station were starting to eye her daughter. She couldn't stop memories coming to her mind of how they would almost casually remark about her daughter was growing up. How she had come into a fine figure of a woman, how proud she must be of her daughter and how any man would give a great deal for a chance to be with her for even a few minutes or so. She had called them sick. She had explained that her daughter was only eighteen and still little more than a child by Asari standards. And she would never forget how they had laughed at that.

She lost her smile because of that. She couldn't help but grimace whenever those thoughts entered her mind. She had fought hard to get out of the brothels. The pimps never wanted to give up an Asari. But after that horrid night, that she never thought about, she had known she was pregnant. The pimps wouldn't put up with her losing business for so long, they would've forced her to get an abortion. She had been tempted to let them make her, to get free from the memory of that night. But the thought of having her own daughter, of having anything that was truly hers in this goddess forsaken place, of making something of undeniable value despite all the ways she had messed up in life. All that made her truly fight back for perhaps the first time she had been taken and broken. So she seduced the owner of this bar and reminded him that in his own way he was a decent man. She used what few savings she had to bribe the other girls working here so they wouldn't object to her forcing her way into their tight knit group. She had hidden her pregnancy and acted as if that one night had finally broken her completely. After a string of dissatisfied customers and enduring the beatings that little defiance had cost her, the pimps had been willing to sell her to the bar owner.

She had gained some freedom. As much as any Asari got on Torfan anyway. She still had to sell her nights from time to time, she either let them pay or they would take what they wanted by force anyway. No smuggler or would take a girl off of Torfan, and while the pirates might that would just be trading one form of slavery for a much worse one. She had raised her daughter as best she could and now the pimps were eying her. Sooner or later the pimps always got what they wanted, they made too much money not to. The only group that could afford to deny them were the drug dealers and that was not a career path she was willing to follow at least not until she was certain she had no other choice to protect her daughter.

And this was Kayla life. An unthinkable past, a present that was only joyous by contrast, and a future that truly terrified her. She would not give up her daughter no matter what may come. Which meant that at some point she would go to those drug dealers and she would offer to sell for them, and she would use what she could remember from her old chemistry classes growing up to help make them. So she and her daughter would survive by exploiting the weakness, misery and addiction of people whose lives were only marginally better than hers had been when she was a whore. And she would hate herself for it, because then she would be no better than the pimps. She dreaded the thought, that the day would come when she wouldn't hate herself for it, when she would justify it, when she would forget what it was like to be the lowest of scum because by then the very last of who she had been before she came to Torfan would be dead and gone forever. But she would still do it. For the sake of her daughter's smile.

Then about four hours ago a giant had appeared in the middle of the bar. It had been a slow day up until that point. There had been trouble brewing between the pirates and the security officers. The bars should've been packed with a fleet of such scale above the moon, but there had been killings. Bad ones too from the sound of the rumors. So security was running double and triple shifts, marching up and down the corridors, armed to the teeth and glaring at everyone, and the pirates had fallen back to their star ports. Everyone else was keeping their heads down, so the bar had been completely empty other than the serving staff. Later the double shifts would end as things cooled down. Later the security guards would come in like the tide to fill the bars and drink themselves stupid as they boasted about how they had stared down the pirates while privately thanking what ever gods would have their souls that the pirates had backed down without a fight. But up until that point the bar had been empty. And then the giant filled it.

He had appeared in a moment with the click of a stealth field generator shutting down, and towered over anything Kayla had ever seen. He was decked head to toe in shining brass or maybe bronze armor. His helmet was an oversized Batarian skull. The air around him seemed to grow thick, and he sucked all eyes towards himself like a black hole bending light and space. It had taken Kayla a moment or two to notice the dead body he held in his hand. It took her another moment to recognize the armor it wore as the same armor worn by that squad of Special Intervention troops who had come here the first night the pirates checked in. Those men had been true killers that pirates and guards alike kept their distance from and paid some respect to. This one had armor that had been dented hard enough to turn concave, whose arms, legs and head hung with the unnatural limpness created by shattered bones. Kayla could almost imagine she saw the imprints of the giants knuckles at the center of where the armor had been struck.

This man standing before her was absolutely terrifying. He was also absolutely awe inspiring. Kayla had spent decades being beaten down by men who were stronger than her, but here was power that was beyond strength. Here was the monster that devils feared. She was reminded of the old stories. Of heroic matrons who had been sent forth with the blessing of Athame to hunt the Ardat-Yakshi. Of the horrific demonic monsters the Ardat-Yakshi could call forth to their defense and the great noble beasts that guided the holy warriors. Come to think of it, in those old stories it often seemed like the Ardat-Yakshi feared those great beasts, which were the spirits of nature and Thessia itself, far more than they did the holy warriors who struck them down. Here before her stood one such beast. A power called forth from nature itself that overwhelmed darkness and light alike by its mere presence. This was now a crossroads of her life. Soon things would change. And she would not be the one who decided whether her life would become much better, or if she would become a corpse. Then the giant spoke.

"I tell you the truth." He said simply, his voice was low, almost a whisper, but deep enough that Kayla could feel it rattle in her lungs and chest. "In thirty hours Torfan will belong to the dead and the dying. There is a way off this moon, but you will have to pay my price to make that escape. For every security guard my men find dead or helpless from poison, I will reserve a place for one of you here on the ships that will get away. I have made the same offer to the other bars, the whores and the drug dealers so for every man you bring down you might not only save your own life but the lives of others. Salvation is at hand, if you will rise up to take it."

There was silence, for no one could possibly speak against this monster of a man before them. There was so much to take in; Kayla's mind raced and whirled as it tried to consider it all from every angle. There was hope; a future for her daughter off this moon which might not damn her mother's soul, or at least not damn it any further. And there was dread, for she would have to kill men who, truth be told, could've been so much worse than they were for no other reason than because they stood between her and escape. She would buy her freedom and her daughter's safety with the lives of other men. She should be worried about how quickly she was willing to take that deal. And there was something else too. This man had just told a room full of people he did not know that he was preparing to attack the place they called home. If even one of them went to the guards then that attack should become a lot more difficult for him to pull off. But he had done it anyway. And from the sound of it, he had done it in other bars across the station. So either he was so confident that his sheer presence could bend them all to his will, a pretty decent bet if she considered her own reaction to be that of the average person. Or he was so sure of victory that warning his enemy that the blow was coming didn't faze him at all.

"Are you mad?!" The bar owner shouted to break the silence, "Do you know what will happen to us if-"

Kayla had grabbed a bottle within a second of the man speaking. He was a good man, she thought. He had always tried to do right by the girls as he could. But he was a man ruled by fear. Old fears, too deep and too many; so they had blinded him to the fact that if this giant thought there was a liability in this room, that might endanger his plan, he would not let that threat go alive. The bottle was a better fate by far. She owed the man that much at least. For her daughter.

A least four other girls grabbed bottles or heavy beer mugs at the same time Kayla had. Kayla was the closest to the man save one. And that one girl had grabbed a bottle just a split second before Kayla did. She was Jeer, a Batarian girl and the woman who was currently sharing the bar owner's bed. She actually loved the man and acted as a kind of second in command of the bar. Kayla had bought her an emerald necklace when she had claimed that post, as a sign that as one of the owner's former lovers she would not contest the girls new place. Batarian girls could be quite jealous if they didn't receive such direct signs of submission, and after that the two had got along splendidly.

Jeer brough the bottle down on her almost husband's head right on the top with a heavy thump, ending his mad rant before it could get him killed. A second later, Kayla hit the back of the man's head with enough force to shatter the bottle, but thankfully not the part she was holding. That hit put him on the floor where he groaned but made no other moves. Jeer nodded at her. Then Jeer bowed to the giant.

"Please forgive my poor man great lord." She said with calm humility and as much grace as she could. The giant's eyes were on her. Kayla could feel the weight of them from more than a foot away from Jeer as she spoke. "We will tie him up in the back where he won't bother anyone. And we will do as you say. Thankyou for the chance to earn our lives."

The giant nodded. Then he was gone. The girls breathed out a sigh of relief.

There were discussions that followed that encounter. Not debates. No one questioned that it was right to do as they had been told. Even if the giant intended to betray them there was nothing they could do about it. In thirty hours they would all be dead or off of Torfan. All they could do was obey and maximize their chances. So they discussed how best to poison the security guards so that they would fall before this attack began, whenever that was, but not so soon that the bar would fall under suspicion and either be attacked or avoided. Plans were made. New versions of the most popular drinks were designed to mask the flavor of the added ingredients. One of the Batarian girls volunteered to test the drinks. After an hour she had been left on the floor paralized by pain and vomiting her guts out. Even with medigel injections and prepared antidote she still nearly died. It had been terrifying. And it would work. They could do this. They had hope.

Kayla reigned herself in as her smile grew a little too genuine. No one really smiled like that on Torfan unless things were going 'According to Plan.' Which was guaranteed to put anyone on edge. She couldn't let herself think about a future free of this place with her daughter. She focussed back on the present. She focussed on the same memories that got her through every day. The smile came back, but now it was slightly wooden. It was now the smile of someone who was getting paid to smile, and the smile of someone who knew that her expressing her real thoughts about those around her would get her a smack to the face. It was her normal smile. The smile the guards would expect. She nodded at that, and left the dressing room.

The bar was only now starting to fill up. The guards were finally standing down and the first squads of them had just come in. She grabbed a notepad and made her way to a freshly seated table. She shook her hips when they whistled at her. She laughed at their jokes as she took their orders. She made a noise that was half a yelp and half a moan when one of them pinched her rear as she walked away. She swatted at his hand with the notepad, but not too hard, and she didn't actually hit him. When she came back with drinks she smiled playfully at the man who had pinched her.

The first round of drinks she brought were perfectly safe. They didn't want men dropping down in the bar. It was an easy skill to read a group. To tell which ones were trying to drown their fears, which were trying to keep their wits, which could be egged on, and which were finally about to leave. There was nothing they could do about those who would only drink one or two rounds. They would stop long before their fellows were ready to go. But the others could be urged on pretty easily. The drunker they were the less likely they would be to notice if the taste was off. They would also be worse at fighting if that came down to it, so then even if they escaped unpoisoned they would still be easy prey for the giant. That had to count for something. Only when the girls were sure the group would leave within the next quarter hour or so, would they bring them the real stuff. Drinks spiked with Turian brandy and some of the excellerants that Krogan used to suppress their immune system long enough to get properly drunk. It wouldn't be so bad at first. It even tasted a little better than the base drinks. Until it started digesting. It wasn't a pretty sight after that.

She had her first table on its fourth round, and three more tables on at least their second, when things started to go wrong. So far she hadn't had any trouble with getting people to buy more liquor as fast as they could get it. It seemed like all the guards wanted to either calm their nerves or forget about the last few days entirely. The problem was the man who had pinched her. Everytime she came back the man just got more grabby. She tried to play it off, she tried to turn him down without seeming a buzz kill. But the man would not take a hint. It was clear he wanted more stress relief than just alcohol could provide. His jokes and one liners were getting worse, more insistent and direct. On a normal day she might be able to ride out his attention. Keep bringing him drinks and eventually he would be too drunk to even stand up straight much less come after her. If she couldn't do that, then she would just have to meet him after work, and make sure he paid upfront. But now she wasn't sure they could afford the attention. She didn't have time to get him fully drunk, and it seemed like he wasn't willing to wait until her shift was over. She would have to bite the bullet.

She slipped him a figure on a napkin. He smiled like a fool, showed it to his friends who whooped and hollered at the sight, then nodded to her vigorously. She turned to Jeer who was manning the bar itself and rolled her eyes. Jeer thumbed towards the bathrooms and told her to make it 'quick.' Kayla beckoned the man to follow him and took him to the 'lady's' room. She opened a stall where they would have plenty of room and tried to let her mind go blank while her body went through the motions. She had done this dozens of times before. She tried to take comfort that perhaps this would be the last time she ever had to. He had her shirt open and her bra off. He was having his fun with her chest. He slipped one hand down lower and that was when she snapped.

It is an easy thing after all, to submit when there is nothing to gain and everything to lose. But with hope comes a vision of how the world can be better and anger that it is not yet so. Hope is often the first step on the road to disaster and disappointment.

She froze at his touch. Her mind seemed to turn red as anger and resentment so long thought buried arose in her all at once. And all Asari are at least slightly biotic. She grabbed the man's head in something like a pull field and she twisted it violently to the side. There was a snap. His hands went limp. He was held in the air for a moment as the field lingered, then it faded and there was a heavy thump as he fell to the ground. For almost five minutes all Kayla could do was tremble and shake. The rage that had driven her vanished the instant she heard the snap. Now only fear remained.

She heard the door to the restroom swing open and the spell of fear was broken. She grabbed the man and lifted him up off the ground and pinned him against the wall. She held very still as she heard someone relieve themselves, wash their hands and leave. It seemed like she took her first breath since that snap after they left. She fell back into panic for a short time, but the reasonable part of her mind finally started speaking up.

She was in a women's bathroom. The only girls that would come in here would be the other serving staff. Any woman who came into a bar full of off duty stressed out security guards would be the ones who actually liked getting the backsides pinched and there weren't many of that type on Torfan. She was safe for now. She would be safe right up until the rest of the guards out there started wondering just how long their buddy was going to take. How much time had it been already? She didn't know. She needed to start thinking.

She pulled at the man's arm and managed to get his omnitool to boot up. By a stroke of luck it wasn't password protected. She pulled up his contact list and found a group marked 'squadmates.' She picked a name at random and sent them a message to the effect of complementing her skills with her mouth and vowing to slip out the back with this pretty barmaid and take her home. She got a message back, congratulating him on 'scoring' and warned him he would have to pay the others back for the drinks.

First crisis averted, but she couldn't just leave the body here in the stall. She activated her own omnitool and sent out a cry for help to Jeer. She kept the message vague but urgent. It took a few more agonizing minutes, but a last Jeer came in calling Kayla's name.

"Over here!" She called back from the stall.

"By the pillars what is going on here Kayla?" Jeer asked from just outside the stall. The stress was beginning to show in her own voice.

"Its-" Kayla started but couldn't actually say it. "Its- Look, just come in here please."

Jeer pulled at the stall door. It was still locked. Kayla hit the release catch after staring dumbfounded at it for just a second. Then Jeer came in. She blinked. Then she cursed, Kayla translator didn't know how to interpret that curse, but Kayla still knew a curse when she heard one.

"Rot Father's eyes Kayla!" She added in words that at least the translator did know, even if Kayla still couldn't make sense of it. "What were you thinking? We were told to poison the bastards not lure them into some honey trap!"

"I didn't mean to!" Kayla shot back on instinct. "I just snapped when he started to grab me, next thing I knew he was on the ground."

"What are we supposed to do about this?!" Jeer shot back, "If any of the men out there see this they are going to tear this place apart and us with it!"

"I sent the guards a message from his omnitool," Kayla explained, "Telling them he was heading home out through the back. If we can just get him out of here it shouldn't matter."

"There's no way to get to the back from here without crossing through the main room!" Jeer exclaimed.

"He was already getting kind of drunk." Kayla said, thinking quickly on her feet. "If we throw him over our shoulders and stagger a bit, maybe no one will notice."

"Not a great plan." Jeer derided, "But probably the best were going to get. We'll take him to the warehouse across the corridor. Nobody should notice him in there, it's not in use at the moment."

They took a few minutes to doll the corpse up a bit before the left. They made his complexion seem less pale and more lifelike. They injected some medigell back into his neck so that his spine didn't seem quite so broken. They even found a pair of shades in his coat that hid the dead look of his eyes. Finally, after a bit of panic aided practice, Kayla worked out a way to pull on his hands with some subtle biotic fields which could move his fingers.

Finally they each got underneath one side of the corpse, shifted his head into a somewhat lifelike position and walked him out the bar. Fortunately they didn't have to cross the whole bar room itself. They just had to skirt its edges for a few feet to head back towards the kitchens. Of course the man's friends spotted him almost immediately and raised a cheer in his direction. Kayla was on the side facing them, so they couldn't quite see Jeer who was much smaller than the man she carried. Kayla flexed the biotic field she had been practicing and the body raised one of its hands and flashed the 'V' sign for peace and victory that humanity had introduced to the galaxy at large. The guards whooped and hollered at that, but fortunately none actually approached them. Quickly enough, they made their way out through the kitchens and into the corridors beyond.

Beyond that, no one in the passage challenged them. The door on the empty storage room was unlocked and once inside they found a dark corner of the room to drop the body in. There was a good amount of trash discarded across the floor, and the two quickly found enough to pile over the body before they beat a hasty retreat. This would certainly go down in Kayla's mind as one of her worst memories of her life. But now it seemed like it was finally over. They opened the door back to the corridor and were greeted by a Torfan security guard with a drawn weapon.

"Good day ladies." The towering Batarian greeted in a smug voice that just hinted at the anger beneath it. "I don't suppose either of you could tell me why, and how my partner managed to send me a message after his vital signs had switched off?"

"Brass God take my eyes." Jeer said under her breath and the other Batarian seemed taken aback by the words. "I have no idea what you're talking about, officer."

The man raised his omnitool, the screen on it showed a number of names. Next to each was an EKG line and list of vital statistics. One of the names had flat lined. The security guards must've started monitoring each other in case more of them were attacked by the pirates. Kayla's face went blank. She couldn't stop it. She was dead. She had been dead ever since she broke the man's neck. The only reason she was still breathing now was because the man in front of her was one of those sadistic bastards who enjoyed backing his prey into the corner before he pulled the trigger.

"I don't have to stand around and listen to this." Jeer denied trying to ignore the omnitool before her. "We've already paid for our insurance for this month. I have a bar to run. If you have a missing officer to find I suggest you get about it and leave the rest of us out of it."

The guard flicked his wrist. The omnitool's screen changed and he still had a gun pointed at both of them. Now the screen showed an image of the surrounding corridors and rooms. In the center of the screen was one dot marking the omnitool. In the corner of the room behind them was a blinking light. He had a tracker on the body. He knew it was just taken here. And he knew they were trying to come out of that very same room. Now Jeer went pale.

"The two of you are under arrest for the assault and murder of security guard." The man declared triumphantly. He smiled evilly at the both of them. "You are going to regret that. And once we know which of the pirates put you up to this, and maybe had some fun with the both of you, you are going to die screaming."

Kayla screamed. Her biotics flared as she tried to throw the man back. For a long agonizing second her arm crawled through the air towards the man. But biotics take a few precious seconds to gather and go off. Guns take only an instant to fire. She saw the flash. She felt the scream dying in her throat as a fresh hole tore through it. The world snapped back into motion as her throw fizzled out and she fell to the ground drowning in her own blood. The guard snapped a few more shots into her as he knocked Jeer to the ground with a back hand to her face. The shots in her burned with lancing pain. Pain like she had never known before. Pain that left her paralyzed in shock. Pain that blessedly drained from her as her mind slipped into the abyss. Her lost thoughts were of her daughter's smile. And an apology to the giant who had given her such wondrous and brief hope, that she had only managed to kill one of the bastards.

* * *

(TL;DR: An Asari named Kayla was enlisted by Shepherd with a number of other bar maids to poison Torfan security guards, she agreed to help for the sake of her daughter. After being cornered by a drunken soldier Kayla panicked and killed the man. A Batarian barmaid named Jeer tried to help her hide the body but they were both caught. Jeer was captured, Kayla killed.

* * *

T-5 minutes

"Shifts are changing over now." A scout reported from near the main door by text. "The new patrols have checked in. And now they are spreading out. Fifteen two man teams following the normal routes."

"Spotters find your men and check in once they are in sights." Jack ordered through the network of omnitools spread out amongst the slaves in the massive warehouse. Most of any war is a question of organization. A day and a half was hardly anytime at all to organize fifty thousand odd people. But she had done here work carefully and now it was time to finally pull the trigger.

One by one the spotters checked in, confirming the patrols were moving as they should. Trading off with each other as different teams drifted in and out of sight. Just a few more minutes and the old shift should be safely out of earshot, and no more guards would come to this section of the station for almost another half hour thanks to some careful editing of their patrol routes. The actual snipers were only just following the men with their eyes for now, their guns were still carefully hidden away.

Jar-Kannath kept to his word. He had gotten all of the already armed slaves down into Torfan without incident. He had also gotten at least one cage worth of their people into each of the great columns and rows of imprisoned civilians. The bars dividing the cages stood no chance against the omniblade programs that Tali had distributed to the men. Pathways were created through the forest of iron. How could the handful of guards in here possibly tell that people had moved from one cage to another? And with the men spread the story of Shepherd and the hope of escape.

That should've been a hard story for people to swallow. A giant of all things showing up out of nowhere to all but single handedly defeat a whole ship full of pirates, talk said pirates into helping him, and smuggling a small army of men down into one of the most heavily defended bases in the galaxy not run by Turians. It was preposterous. But the people telling those stories were true believers by that point. Humans can sense fanaticism in others to some extent at least, and if they don't instantly recoil from it, they tend to be fascinated by it themselves. Most people don't actually believe in much. They just go through life as it comes to them. It takes a real event to shake people, an encounter with chaos or a real threat to make them take stock of what they actually think, and how much that actually means to them. To meet someone who has already had that encounter and taken their stand on what it means to them, they either come across as either crazy or heroic. Here in a prison awaiting sale into a life of slavery and suffering, people wanted to believe in heroes.

So the free men told stories to the waiting slaves. They spun the myth of the Shepherd who had saved them. People believed them, and within a few hours were asking how they could help. After that the free men listened to those around them and took notes. They listened to the life stories of the people in the cages with them. They wrote down certain important basic facts, age sex, past jobs, firearm familiarity, criminal records, those kind of things. Mostly what Jack was looking for was former bureaucrats and middle managers.

Soldiering wasn't actually all that hard. That's why most of the people who joined any army were ground pounders. Once they had the muscle memory down they would have about fifty percent of the job mastered. That was a question of time. What every army actually needed was organizers. In Jack's case, people who could sift through the data they were gathering and make something useful of it. More importantly, surviving as a middle manager required at least some skill at recognizing talent. One had to be able to know who could be counted on to do their job, who was going to be gunning to get their own job and therefore needed to be sabotaged and beaten down, and whose skill was great enough that they could be kicked up the ladder and made into someone else's problem.

Yes obviously former cops, military personnel, retired veterans and the handful of hardened criminals needed to be given guns as quickly as possible and prepared to take point for the first few fights. The tricky ones were those who knew just enough about guns that they may have picked up some bad habits. Which of the young men looked like they would be able to keep a level head long enough to learn how to fight? Which of the women would be able to keep up? How many people did they need to hold back to protect the kids and treat the wounded? And which people tickled that extra sense, which meant they might be born killers who just need a chance to really shine? That was what Jack needed help figuring out. That had finally been settled about four hours ago or so.

They had their divisions, thirty man teams led by an actual soldier, divided into five man squadrons led by men who had fought alongside Shepherd, police officers or criminals who had killed before. About five thousand men or so were ready to go out in the first wave. Each division would be monitored by a team of managers who would evaluate how well each man was doing. Those who seemed to have some talent or skill for fighting would be sent back here to lead new squads and divisions that were prepared to go out, but needed some kind of leadership to guide them. They would keep sending out troops in five thousand man waves to expand the front until they had about half of the people here fighting.

"Thirty seconds to fire." Jack ordered, "Guns out and line up your targets."

Like clock work each patrol marched along the same routes all the others had followed for the last thirty six hours. Each of the thirty guards in here walked along to the spots where they would die. Each had a sniper rifle lining up on their heads, with an assault rifle or two ready to finish the job if they had invested in better shields for themselves. Truth be told it was massive overkill. There were only thirty guards in this warehouse and well over a thousand heavily armed and shielded men waiting to kill them. However, a perfect beginning to this uprising would raise the spirits of the huddled masses, if the first obstacle could be cleared without anyone getting hurt, the people would have the confidence to move forward. Besides, Jack thought there was a certain amount of beauty to well organized destruction. Chaos under control, taimed and ruled by the will of man. What a truly lovely thought.

"T minus five," Jack sounded off switching to radio communication, "Four, three, two, one. Drop em."

Thirty shots echoed around the hall at almost the same instant she said 'drop.' There was a short rattle of rifle fire following it up, but even that cut out quickly. Then each team reported in and confirmed targets were down. Armed men close to where the guards had dropped, sliced open the bars to their cages and rushed to the fallen bodies. In seconds each was confirmed dead, and soon the weapons and armor were stripped from them.

"Perfectly done gentlemen." Jack congratulated everyone, her voice now easily heard around her as the fire teams turned up the audio on their omnitools for others to hear. "Begin to disassemble the cages and organize into companies. Non combatants and children to the center. Managers and cyber experts form up on me. Shepherd should be with us shortly."

All her orders in truth were unnecessary. People already knew what they were supposed to do. The cage she was in fell away from around her as she spoke, as its walls were removed with the simple but serviceable tools the pirates had managed to smuggle to them. Moving weapons, other than pistols maybe, into the pens was dangerous, most people didn't have the right kind of clothing to be able to hide them, but even power drills could be hidden under huddling bodies fairly easily. Before long the room was a lot more open, makeshift barricades were set up at the main entrances, and the first wave stood assembled. The people were ready, all they needed was a leader to send them off. Just when he was needed, Shepherd at last entered the warehouse.

Even Jack couldn't help but stop and stare at the man. She had known Shepherd for years. But she had always known him when he was at ease as it were. Surrounded by friends and family, without any purpose except to watch and learn, without any threat before him and only the wider galaxy to consider in the abstract. Once she had seen him on the battlefield. Once she had seen his anger and violence unrestrained. It haunted her dreams even worse than the sight of what she had done in anger to living beings for the first time. It was almost as bad as her memories of Cerberus, and that only because that violence had been directed away from her. Now she saw him unrestrained once more. Now he held nothing back, his confidence, his command, his sense of self filled the room in an instant. His presence pressed down on her, and it took her time to recenter herself, to remember that she had the right to make choices for herself. To remember that it was possible for this demigod before her could make mistakes and counted on her to check his thinking. It took her longer than she would've liked it to, and she doubted there were more than ten other people in this room who could do it to. With effort she pulled her eyes away from the man. She saw Tali nearby her, surrounded by the other tech experts. It was hard to tell with her since her face was hidden, but she could just barely see the girl shaking her head from side to side. It was almost hypnotic.

Shepherd walked through the assembled masses in his full armor. It gleamed like gold in the harsh lights of the warehouse. But as the lights passed over it, it turned more dull and showed for the bronze it was. The glimmer of glory shining over the more harsh glare of the metal's true nature. He looked like the grand statue of some ancient conqueror brought to life, towering and overwhelming. When he reached the center of the room he removed his helmet, and his eyes swept over the people. For the first look they were hard. Jack could see the people stiffen as the eyes passed over them, they were paralyzed as Shepherd seemed to hold each one of them and judged them. People stumbled back as his look left them, released from his grasp and they were left wondering how they measured up. Then he turned around again, but this time he smiled warmly at the people and his eyes caught the lights so those blue specks in them looked like a clear day breaking through stormy clouds. Even from this distance she could make out his eyes clear as crystal. Now the people were smiling as well. They looked from one to another full of excitement, they all but seemed to bounce in place. They had been weighed and measured by a man who could break the whole galaxy as far they were concerned and they had not been found wanting. They had passed this test, what other horror could this station possibly throw up that could stop them now?

"Brothers and sisters." Shepherd spoke, his voice seemed soft but it carried all around them and echoed back enveloping them all. "I will not waste your time. There is a piece of work that stands before us, and we must get to it.

"Beyond that door." He said, pointing to the door that led deeper back into the station. "Stands the bastards, the slavers, the thieves, and the tyrants who would break you down, take your lives, take your futures and take your very sense of self for their own playthings. If we do not deal with them here and now they will bite at our heels and like the wolves they are, they will bring down the weakest we have here. And I will give them none of us. They deserve nothing, but your scorn and your wrath.

"Beyond that door is battle." Shepherd told them his voice firmer and tiniest part of his own anger bleeding into his words. "Beyond that door you will have to fight and kill. Some of you may fall in that fight. But those who do, fall as men, not as slaves cowering, or as cowards running blindly. You will break them in that battle. You will make them fear you. You will teach them the folly of bringing you here. You will make them regret their choice to disturb our peace. You will make them run and cower from you, and then we will be free to leave in peace.

"But I tell you one more thing, brothers and sisters," Shepherd added, now his voice was softer, kinder and more hopeful. "Beyond that door, even here on Torfan there are innocent people. They are already broken. Slaves, whores, dealers, strippers, women and children even. People who have lived their whole lives facing all the horrors that you all have seen in your imaginations these past few days. People who have never had a chance to be good. Who have never had a chance to make something of themselves, who have fought their whole lives just for a chance to live on one more day. I ask you, my brothers and sisters, as you cleanse this place in the fire of your righteous anger, will you cut down these poor wretches as well? Or will you stay your hand, rise above those that have tried to drag you down, and pull these poor souls up with you as well?"

"We will save them!" To Jack's surprise it had been Tali who shouted that, just a second before she herself could. The girl had even raised a fist into the air as she did so. The cry spread like a wave out from her as all who heard the quarian joined in assent. Jack joined in as well, she couldn't have stopped herself if she wanted to. The sound crashed over Shepherd and he smiled back at them all with a wide toothed grin. He applauded them as they declared that they would save every soul worth saving in this blasted place. The sight of that slowly silenced the crowd as the joy of their own defiance against a cold and callous galaxy gave way to beaming pride as they knew that they had risen up to what Shepherd expected of them.

"Then let us go forth, my brothers and sisters," Shepherd shouted as the last of the roar died down, "Let us save each other, and let us save those who need us. Let us wipe away this place of evil, and let Torfan stand forever as a monument to the power of people to do what is right even when all hope seems lost."

Five thousand would be slaves poured out into the surrounding corridors and warehouses. Weapon caches were reached and plundered. The denizens of Torfan saw them pass and called for security. Shepherd led Jack, Tali and their supporters to a nearby security station. They had about five maybe ten minutes before the counter attack would come. Jack wasn't surprised that the station had been cleared, she was surprised to see the Turian Spectre standing over the bodies of the fallen.

"Shepherd." Saren greeted while watching the security monitors and listening to radio chatter already beginning to fill the station. "Their response is a bit sluggish so far. They seem to be lacking officers at the moment. You have about eight more minutes before they hit you."

"Plenty of time." Shepherd confirmed with a nod at the Spectre. The cyber experts and managers filled the room, typing away on consoles and shifting through different cameras throughout the station. Dozens of omnitools lit up and synchronized with the security network. Before long they were effortlessly tracking the handful of guard patrols being redirected to put down the revolt.

"Starting disinformation campaign." Tali announced, now that the managers were linked up with their divisions the cyber experts turned to their own mission. One by one, the other security stations across Torfan shut down. Cut off from camera feeds, cut off from their own network, and cut off from communication lines, every security team on the station suddenly found themselves: blind, deaf, dumb and rather alone. Then new orders came through, most by texts, and some by garbled radio broadcast. Orders that sent them running this way and that. Orders that got them lost in the maze of tunnels around Torfan. And some orders that started to feed them piece by piece into the waiting maw of the angry uprising.

"So who's your new friend Shep?" Jack said, jerking a thumb at the Turian. In truth she recognized the man, she had been expecting him to be the last big obstacle to their victory here, and she wanted an explanation.

"Jack this is Saren," Shepherd said, making introductions as he glanced over the lists of fighters and squadrons they had put together and which managers were attached to each. "He's a Citadel Spectre. I had a word with him and he's agreed to give us a hand."

There was a momentary pause in the chatter passing back and forth between the cyber teams, the managers and their troops getting geared up for the fight. All eyes turned to the Turian with a mixture of respect and fear. These people had stood before an unrestrained Shepherd at this point so it would be a while before anything could put true awe into them, but everyone knew stories of the Citadel Spectres.

"He is, is he?" Jack asked, more than a little skeptical.

"Well it's not like I'm going to leave you all to die." Saren scoffed in response. "Slavery is illegal in the galaxy. The Citadel would never allow such a massive crime to go unpunished. When I arrived and found Shepherd in control of the situation, it was only natural that I should join him and make sure this all works out."

Jack gave the Turian a look that called his bluff. The Spectre responded with a blank look and a shifting around his eyes like a raised eyebrow. Dammit, Shepherd had actually added a Spectre to his little collection. The man was going to be smug about this for the rest of the month, she just knew it.

"Saren and you will escort the rest of the managers to other security stations once we've secured control of the area around them." Shepherd ordered, well not quite ordered, he just spoke with that absolute certainty he had that the future would turn out just as he had described. "I trust the two of you will get along?"

"I'll get the job done." Jack assured, Saren just scoffed at the thought that it could be otherwise. "Looks like our boys are armored up."

"Then we will begin." Shepherd said, he brought a map of Torfan on his omnitool and forwarded it to all the assembled managers. With a sweep of his fingers he focused in on the area immediately around where the first wave was assembling and ready to move out. He marked a number of locations where enemy troops were approaching from, while all around him the maps he had sent out mirrored the changes he made to his own. Each manager also marked the location on their own maps where their divisions were awaiting orders, which in turn reflected back to Shepherd's master map. Then he began to issue orders.

"Division 26 to corridor 12 north, set up a barricade and await hostiles. Division 33 to area 15 stack up and await chance to outflank. Division 44 move through area 13 to corridor 13 west cut off their retreat once the enemy has entered the killing field. Division 55, 34, 16, 11 start moving down corridor 11 west, sweep areas 11, 22, 33, 55"

So the fighting began. So the killing continued.

* * *

T+1 Hour.

With a roar and the thunder of the charge, five Krogan rushed down the hallway at the dozen odd security guards that stood in their path. The Batarians fired back with a storm of metal shards cutting through the air. Shields failed for two of the Krogan, but their armor held. The distance between the two groups was closed, and guards began to panic. Shotguns and assault rifles opened up at point blank range, and those few guards that survived the barrage were beaten down and crushed by the berserkers. The fighting lasted seconds, nothing but a bloody smear was left behind. Some Krogan ducked to strip the boddies of goods and credits, their guns and armor weren't worth taking, but Battlemaster Shrack yelled at them from behind and urged them on and forward.

The five hundred members of the blood pack swept through Torfan like a great wave. They moved through a dozen different corridors on two different levels, spreading out enough that everyone got a chance to fight, but close enough to keep in radio contact through the insulated walls of the station. They killed anything that stumbled into their path, and often they made sure it was a hard path to avoid.

Shrack and Okeer stood back from the front for now. They would both take their turn at the front from time to time. Unlike the young fools that had just barreled over the security guards, they had nothing to prove, but they were still Krogan and the sound of fighting would make their blood boil and they would all but leap into the fray with the sounds of joy and rage in their cries. As leaders of the pack they mostly held themselves in check though, someone had to keep their eyes open and their minds clear.

"That's the twelfth team of security guards we've run over, and still no sign of the slaves." Shrack observed, his eyes shifting about as if he expected an army to pop out of the walls. "Pretty lucky for them."

"Coincidence is a dangerous thing to presume on the battlefield." Okeer instructed. Shrack was the more senior of the two as the blood pack reckoned things, but Okeer was far older and more experienced. Shrack couldn't allow the older Krogan to usurp his place, but he wasn't so arrogant as to ignore his elder's advice. In fact the man took every chance to pick Okeer's mind. Okeer respected that, he had already taken a sample of the young man's blood, it would be a useful thing to have in the future he was sure.

"You really think so highly of this giant human?" Shrack responded. His voice was more curious than derisive. "If he's as tough and clever as you say then the much more enjoyable fight might be to take him on directly."

"It might be," Okeer conceded, "But then you would lose out on something so much better."

"What in life is better than a good fight?" Shrack scoffed.

"One word: war." Okeer answered.

"I suppose so!" Shrack agreed with a laugh, "But I've never had to work this hard for a war before. Can even that be worth the effort?"

"Whelp," Okeer muttered under his breath coming to a halt, "You've never fought a war at all what do you know of their true worth?"

"I won't take that tone from anyone old man!" Shrack shouted turning to face the ancient warlord, "I've fought from one end of this galaxy to the other-"

"In petty skirmishes, drug rivalries, and the brief spats between jumped up terminus petty criminals." Okeer interrupted, "Have you ever cowered in the bombed out ruins of a city while the heavens themselves rained fire down upon you and mushroom clouds blossomed in the distance? Have you ever seen the hordes rush against you in their thousands screaming in rage as you gunned them down by the hundreds? Have you ever squeezed the life out of a man in the mud and filth not daring to make a sound less the dozens of his friends spot where you're hidden? No you haven't. I am one of the last Krogan alive who knows what real war is.

"The Quarians fought their morning war against machines more suicidal than even the Rachni were." Okeer declared growing more passionate by the word. "And the humans spat in the face of the Turians in ways never seen in the galaxy before. And what were we, the Krogan, the most brutal and warlike race in the galaxy doing while new glorious wars wracked the galaxy? Squabbling amongst ourselves over the last blasted remnants of a dead world, or begging for scraps from the galaxy's worst scum. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. But now a new war is brewing. Shepherd won't stop here if he lives through it. He'll unleash an army of fanatics on the Hegemony. Not another terrorist organization, but an honest to god army backed up by the greatest fleet ever assembled that wasn't backed by an official government. And I tell you this, nothing in the galaxy that is half so terrible as the destruction unleashed by true believers that know they are doing the right thing."

Shrack had gone quiet not long into Okeer's speech. His eyes were filled with visions of distant battlefields, of glorious triumphs and desperate last stands. Of hordes of freed slaves tearing their masters to pieces as their righteous anger burns their worlds to the ground. Perhaps he even saw the considerable profit that could be made playing one side against the other. Mostly though his blood boiled at the thought of throwing himself and all he was worth into the heart of a galaxy consumed with madness.

"My god," He said at last, "What a glorious way to die. And all we have to do get in on the ground floor of this is kill one little governor?"

"Yep, we just need his head."

* * *

T+1.25 hours

Nihlus calmly detonated a pair of grenades as the remains of a security patrol rushed past the doorway he silently hid in. The explosion knocked the trio of survivors to the ground, two of them died in the blast, the third staggered up just in time to be cut down by a hail of gunfire from behind him. A mob of some thirty angry humans stormed past the corpses, trampling over them, rounding a corner and erupting into another storm of violence. Nihlus tracked their movements for a time, studying them as they fought.

Mob was the right term for them. When they spotted a foe, they made no attempt at taking cover, flanking them, or employing any tactics more complicated than overwhelming their enemies with a staggering amount of firepower. Five or six of them would stand at the front unleashing a constant hail of automatic fire down range. Once their guns overheated, another group would surge past them and continue the onslaught. Slowly they worked their way down the corridor towards their foes. Any enemy that stood out to return fire would drop in seconds as the mob focused their fire on the available target. What few shots came back at the mob hit shields harmlessly. If shields failed, men would lean in front of their vulnerable brethren, shielding them with their own bodies as they fell back and a new enraged civilian came forward to take their place. Eventually the mob closed in and beat the outnumbered defenders to death, using their guns as clubs or pulling them back into the crowd to be strangled to death or stabbed with a dozen knives.

If the numbers were anywhere close to even it wouldn't have worked. If they had tried this against any foe with the discipline to stand up to their firepower it wouldn't have worked. If their enemies had the sense to fall back and leave behind booby traps or set up ambushes it wouldn't have worked. If the enemy had had any kind of coordination or support it wouldn't have worked. But their foes were outnumbered five to one in any fight, were too panicked to keep up the fire needed to break through those shields, too confused to plan anything. And so the Torfan defenders died in droves.

Was this the legendary pirate moon that even the Hierarchy High Command had feared to take on? Was their will always this weak? Or had Shepherd managed to so easily and effortlessly set them all off balance in so short an amount of time? Nihlus didn't know.

When the fighting had first begun, Nihlus had panicked thinking that if he didn't act quickly civilians would start dying in droves. He had rushed all over the place, attacking security, picking off officers, sabotaging weapon stockpiles, slashing lines of communication, anything and everything he could think of to give the civilians a fighting chance. Then he had seen three mobs descend on a security choke point from five different directions and tear its defenders limb from limb after just seconds of fighting. The last security guard had the ground erupt from underneath him as he was dragged down to a lower floor and to a gruesome death. This station's fate was sealed. If the path to the starport was still open, then Shepherd's rampage was set to continue on.

"Nihlus." His omnitool suddenly came to life as he watched the mob continue on to their next target. "Nihlus do you read me? This is Saren come in."

"Nihlus here." The Turian answered, dropping into an abandoned bar room. "Everything is going to hell out here Saren. The revolution is on and it's running out of control. Where are you?"

"In one the security stations." Saren answered. "The situation has devolved out of our control. Sealing off the starport is no longer a viable option. Make for the governor's private hanger and proceed to extraction. Report the situation to the Council and await further instructions from them."

"Saren what's going on?" Nihlus demanded to know. "It sounds like you won't be joining me? Why couldn't you seal the starport? How did things get so far out of control?"

"I won't be joining you." Saren clarified, sounding much to calm. "There's no time to explain. Get out of here on your own. I've infiltrated Shepherd's inner clique and will monitor his actions as the situation evolves. I will report in-"

"You've done what?!" Nihlus interrupted. "Saren-"

"Nihlus listen to me!" Saren interrupted back. "We've underestimated the giant at every turn throughout this. This failure is our making. If you keep fighting here now, you are going to end up killing innocent people, you don't want that on your hands. Now fall back. Reevaluate the situation. A new wave of change is coming to the galaxy, one way or the other. We need to get out in front of that wave if we want to guide it and keep it from overwhelming everything. This can be done, but you have to trust me."

"Saren," Nihlus asked at last, his voice more than a bit desperate. "If you're planning what I think you're planning, then you are deliberating disobeying a direct order from one of the Citadel Councilors! You are throwing away everything you've ever stood for! All you've ever worked for!"

"What I've always stood for, is the greatest good of the galaxy and its people." Saren answered. "If the state must be sacrificed for the survival of sovereignty then so be it. The Council will likely have to denounce me as a rogue if this gets out. So be it. I will do what has to be done, and then pay the price society demands of me when it is done. It has been an honor old friend. Expect my drops to come at the usual spots."

"Saren!" Nihlus shouted, but the connection was cut. He moved to reconnect the call, but his proximity sensors went off. At least two more mobs of humans were closing on his position. He had a clear path away from them, but it would herd him towards the Governor's office. They knew where he was. He could cut his way through those mobs and track Saren down. But how many people would that giant throw into his path to hold him back? Could he kill that many people? And for what? Just so that Saren could tell him to his face that he was going to use the giant to force the Hegemony to the negotiating table?

"Spirits damn that man!" Nihlus shouted to the universe at large. Then he made his way for the exit, vowing that this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

* * *

T+2 hours.

Shepherd was feeling quite satisfied with his work so far. His casualties were light, only about a dozen deaths so far, over fifteen thousand former civilians now had weapons and combat experience with about a thousand of them marked out for having some talent at this bloody business. His overseers were learning something of strategy, they were now predicting enemy movement, planing ambushes and coordinating their attacks together without prompting and with some skill. In the last half hour he had to give out orders only a handful of times and correct their mistakes only once or twice.

His enemy was beginning to stabilize. The governor had barricaded himself in his main office with the remains of the SIU. But someone at the central security holding pens had managed to gain command of the situation and had started organizing a cyber resistance to restore his lines of communication. Shepherd had ordered Tali to back off on her attacks, keeping his foes blind to security cameras, but allowing him to contact the remaining scattered security teams. Sure enough, once the commander realized how bad his losses were he had started pulling back into the caverns below and beyond Torfan. Inside the main base there were now only three remaining centers of resistance: the governor's office which the Krogan were making a beeline to, the holding cells where the other slaves and most of the civilians were being held, and Torfan's central bank where the pimps, gangsters and merchants who ran Torfan had congregated to guard their assets. The cells he had to break to fulfill his promises to Torfan's under class, but the bank had the finances he needed for long term revolution. Both would be hard nuts to crack, and he only had so much time before the reactor began to melt down and leak.

"Halt all advances for now." He ordered, his voice rising far above the general hubbub, people heard him and changed what they were saying mid sentence. "Chose out the five best from each division and reorganize them into new heavy squadrons. Make sure they all have strong shields, and weapons suitable for close quarter fighting. Once organized stack them up outside the main holding cells. Start pulling everyone else back, we will be leaving soon."

The holding cells were the more important target and the harder of the two to crack. Short of breaking through the floor and ceiling there were only a few ways into the network of interconnected chambers, and a few ways through it. Whoever had the command in there had enough sense to destroy the security cameras around them, so they had no real idea of how the defenders were set up within. Shepherd had scouted out the building, he knew what defenses it had that could hold off attackers, he knew how they had to deploy their forces. But there were no real tricks to get past them.

Taking the cells would be a question of direct assault, strength against strength. His men could do it, they had the equipment to win and the moral to carry through the assault. There would be losses though. Shepherd himself could spearhead the attack and drastically lower those casualties, but his men had to know. They had to know the sting of loss, as well as the joy that made it worth it.

But what of the other target? The bank. It's defenses were nowhere near as substantial as those of the cells, but the Blue Suns were there. The mercenary band had stood back from the fighting so far. While it was good that he didn't have to fight them, they hadn't helped either. Apparently the Spectres didn't have as tight a hold on Zaeed as Saren had thought. Trying to break the Blue Suns would also require considerable sacrifice unless he diverted his best men from the cells to strike there instead. Shepherd doubted he had the time to break both strongholds. Perhaps if he himself took on one or the other. Could he entrust the command solely to the amateur strategists he had here?

"Shepherd." Tali called out interrupting his thoughts. "The Blue Suns are trying to contact us."

"Put them through," Shepherd said with a shrug. Around him the work of organizing the main assault on the holding cells continued, but there was a sense of people listening even as they spouted orders into their omnitools and consoles. Shepherd raised his own omnitool and linked it to the main server Tali was using to organize their communication through Torfan's computer network. Moments later the image of an old angry looking man appeared before him. The man looked like he was leaning over a computer screen to make this call. Behind him, Shepherd could make out a few other Blue Suns and a sealed door.

"You insane bastard!" Zaeed shouted at him the moment the call connected. "You've pushed in here too hard and fast, that fat fop of a governor has panicked and is melting down the main reactor!"

Shepherd glanced at Tali, who had started madly typing away the moment she had heard 'melting down.' It was easy to hear Zaeed continue to curse and rant at the giant as the rest of the room had gone dead quiet. Before long, Tali turned back and nodded grimmly to Shepherd. Shepherd of course had been expecting the report for a while now, but his lack of surprise would be seen by others as another sign of his unshakable nerve, so he made no effort to act disturbed by the knowledge.

"How long do we have?" He asked Tali, ignoring and silencing Zaeed.

"Two or three hours I think." Tali responded, "Radiation levels are rising but the reactor is well shielded and some of the safety systems are trying to vent the contaminated steam out of the main base. But eventually it is going to burn through that protection. People will start dying here in about five hours or so."

"More than enough time to evacuate." Shepherd reassured everyone and then began issuing orders. "Begin moving our excess troops to secure the road way to the starport. Call the pirates to let them know to start bringing down transports. Once the main cells are broken, we'll start retracting our front. In the meantime start moving non combatants to the star port as soon as the way clear is confirmed. We will be out of the main base in an hour and a half at most."

Turning back to Zaeed, Shepherd addressed him for the first time since he had called. "My thanks for bringing our attention to this. I assume you will be wanting to see to your own evacuation now?"

"The only way off this rock right now is with your pirates." Zaeed said, gritting his teeth.

"Ah so it is." Shepherd responded as if the thought had only now occurred to him. "So then you will be wanting a lift out then?"

"Well seeing as how I don't want to die bleeding from my own eyes."

"Might be a bit of an issue." Shepherd said after pausing to think for a moment. "I've got a lot of civilians to save here you see, and only so much room aboard the pirate ships. What extra space I do have with me has already been reserved for what passess for civilians on this moon."

"What could that scum possibly have offered you to get off this rock?" Zaeed demanded to know throwing up his arms in frustration.

"They have killed for me." Shepherd answered, "And risked everything to guide my men forward. I will not abandon those who have offered up their lives for me. Sadly for you I have no need for more soldiers at this point. Since my enemies are in full retreat now."

"So what do you want then?" Zaeed bit out, voice strained.

"There should be about four hundred million credits stored in those vaults correct?" Shepherd idly asked.

"All of it is stored on data-slates sealed to the governor's biosignature." Zaeed affirmed. "Useless without a pass from one of his head clerks or the man himself."

"There are always around such precautions." Shepherd dismissed. "Bring me three hundred million and I will get you and your men away from this soon to be radioactive hell hole."

"And the rest of the people here?" Zaeed inquired, no doubt wondering if he was going to have to shoot his way out of his own base.

"Space here really is limited." Shepherd responded with just a hint of smugness. "We will have to see what space is left after everyone else is onboard. I suppose we can auction off any remaining places to the rest."

Most of the room laughed sardonically at that comment, and the rest at least smiled to themselves and they continued to work and coordinate. Tali stiffened as the laughter rolled over her. Zaeed frowned slightly, but gave little sign of being disturbed.

"Will you really leave the rest of them to such a fate as radiation poisoning?" Zaeed pressed. He was a soldier to his core, the man would kill for five credits and a new gun, but he probably took some comfort in the thought that his kills were clean, his foes not left to suffer. Radiation poisoning was a terrible way to die, painless until there was no hope of survival. Their internal organs would burn before their flesh did, their cells dying in droves, overwhelming their bodies ability to carry away the waste until the mass of dead flesh went septic and poisoned what little of their body was still functional. One by one their organs would be overloaded and shut down, not enough of them left alive to function, until at last the body could struggle on no further and gave out. They would be hours dying, maybe days if they found shielded places to hide out and avoid the worst of the radiation.

"Do you have no mercy?" Zaeed continued.

"Mercy is a hard thing to ask for Zaeed." Shepherd answered, his voice grave and serious. "It is one of the most celebrated virtues but it stands in opposition to one of the most necessary. To be merciful is to thwart justice, thus it is only sinful virtue. How much have I already turned a blind eye to here? How much more will I pass over as I go? And still you ask me to permit even more? Is your own conscience so heavy Zaeed that you need me to bear part of it? If you think any man there needs mercy you yourself can give it to them, I have my own people to save."

Zaeed did not answer. The whole room had gone deathly still. Tali's shoulder shook silently. Shepherd's own guts twisted within. It was necessary. The moon was a sacrifice for what was to come. But he hated waste of any kind and the people here had been wasted. Could he have prevented this had he moved sooner? If he had already been out and about the galaxy could he already have had the pirates primed and ready to move as he needed them? But even a few months ago there was no justification for his action. Elysium had been his opportunity, one he had not seen coming and one he could not afford to let slip him by. He needed to move quickly and as the old saying went 'haste makes waste.' It was a thought that offered no comfort, but he would not be diverted.

"Three hundred million for me and my men you said?" Zaeed said backing down, Shepherd nodded in response, "And the other hundred mill?"

Shepherd shrugged. "A million a seat sounds a fair enough price to me. It's actually rather cheap, truth be told since you can't use any of that money yourself. Really all I'm asking is for you to take the trouble of bringing it here, if you want to bring the other hundred mill with you that's your choice."

"Just don't leave without us." Zaeed confirmed.

"Just don't take too long getting here." Shepherd shot back, "We start lifting off in three hours with or without you."

"We'll be there." And the call was cut. Shepherd turned his attention back to the command center. His staff had resumed their work as the conversation had drifted back to more mundane topics. Their faces were grim, but set and determined. The people here had little love for any Batarian right now. Their vengeance for the indignity they had suffered was painted on the walls of the station right now. Their lots were cast in with his. They would follow him into Batarian space now, all the way to Karshan if need be. That vengeance had carried them well so far, but he didn't need a horde to ravage and despoil Batarian space, he needed a core of liberators to forge a better future with. Stamping out their hatred and anger would do no good, but that hatred had to be shaped and directed where he needed it. They had to hate the system, not the people. And the first step in that direction was still locked in the cells.

"Do we have our best people in position yet?" Shepherd asked though he could already see the truth marked on the security screens and holo maps.

"All troops are armed and ready to go Shepherd." Came the answer.

"One last nut to crack then."

* * *

T+3 hours

"Well I'll be damned lads," Young Carl called out from behind Carlson as they finished clearing the latest hardpoint. "We might just manage to make soldiers out of ya'll yet."

Five defenders against thirty attackers, they hadn't lasted long at all. Unlike back in the corridors though it seemed like this new squadron actually knew how to shoot straight. They had dropped four of the defenders without even a single shield failing or anyone needing any medigel. The last defender had hunkered down until the squad closed on him and he ate a point blank shotgun round.

Carlson watched the man try to crawl away, hand clutching to his gut wound. He was crawling towards a gun, but it was doubtful the man would reach it. The man had cowered but he had not run. He probably hadn't shot more than a few rounds at the mob that had stormed towards him. Carlson wondered if the man had even ever fired the gun in anger before this day. But now, with no hope left he still reached for the weapon he had failed to use.

Carlson kicked the man onto his back and looked down at his face. He wasn't sure what he felt towards this man. His anger came when he needed it in the fight. When they closed in on any expected point of resistance the men around him began to mutter to themselves. They remembered the cages, they remembered the slavers who had dragged them from their homes, they remembered what had been coming for them before they rose up. And every time he squeezed the trigger on his rifle he almost thought he could see the face of his dead sister before his eyes. But once the guns went quiet it all left him. The anger would drag out of him, he would see his sister's smile in his mind, and then he just felt tired.

The Batarian stared back up at him. His face was a rictus of pain. His eyes were unfocussed and distant. For just one moment he seemed to focus on Carlson and truly see him. The dying alien smiled at him through clenched teeth, and his hand reached for a side arm that wasn't there. Carlson put the barrel of his gun to the man's forehead, right between his uppermost eyes, and pulled the trigger.

No one in the squad said a word about the execution. At first men had urged them to just leave the dying and wounded where they lay and push on. But then Young Carl had reminded them all of what was coming. A reactor beneath the base was melting down, in a matter of hours this whole place would be flooded with radiation. That was no way for a man to die. Not even men like this.

Carlson wondered what Shepherd would make of that. Their savior had stopped him from killing the man who killed his sister, because he was unarmed and helpless. Yet here he stood over the dead body of a helpless unarmed man. The man he had hated more than anyone else in the world he had agreed to spare, but this man that he felt nothing towards he cut down in cold blood. This man still would've died long before the radiation took him, but if he was going to stop some men from dying in pain, then he might as well spare others from a shorter but no less terrible pain. Carlson wondered if somehow both acts were merciful? Or were both acts cruel?

"Right lads." Young Carl continued, "One more hard point then we're in the west cells. Check your guns and then form up."

Carlson turned away from the dead man and fell back into the routine. He scanned his gun with his omnitool, the barrel wasn't warped and the rifling held. The core was only about thirty percent depleted despite the hundred perhaps thousands of rounds he had fired. The mass effect generator and magnetic rail still functioned at optimal levels. He scanned his shield generator to make sure it was still giving him its full charge. He even padded down his armor and stretched one way and another to make sure there were no dents or gouges that might restrict his movement or dig into his flesh. Everything checked out as he had expected it would.

He took his place in the squadron's line. Third from the front near the center. Young Carl and a former police woman named Salena took point ranging about five meters ahead of the main squad as it moved out. Carl and Salena would check around corners with mirrors and listened at doors and walls to make sure the way ahead was clear. Whenever the squad came to a door the team that stood at the front would jog ahead a bit, force the door open and clear the room before the main squad passed it. Then that team would rejoin the squadron at the rear. Most rooms were abandoned, Carlson heard shooting erupt from two of them as the firing teams cleared them out and then fell back. If more men than the team were needed they would've called back. Carlson's team cleared two rooms and were now second from the front when Salena spotted the last hardpoint around the next bend.

She gave the hand signal for contact. Young Carl took a look at them from a safe distance as around Carlson the muttering began. They were far too quiet for the defenders to hear them. Carlson himself could only barely hear the men to either side of him all but chanting in his ear. The sight of the pirates storming his home replayed in his head over and over again as his anger began to build. Young Carl held them in place for longer than usual. The men around him began to shake in place, and Carlson himself could feel his jaw clench and his body tensed. He was a coiled spring, ready to be released in a moment. He longed for that release. He wanted to charge his enemies and kill them.

Young Carl raised his hand. Beyond the bend there were a few blasting sounds and a rumble of something collapsing. Young Carl urged them on rapidly. The Squadron surged forth.

Carlson rounded the bend but couldn't really see anything beyond the line of men in front of him. The men before him began to fire in controlled bursts down range. Shots rang back and shields flared around him as they hit. Two men leaped back into the squadron as their shields failed and the men behind rushed forward to continue pouring rounds at their foes. The man in front of Carlson dropped to one knee. Carlson raised his rifle and stepped around the man as his gun began to overheat.

This hard point was far more substantial than the others. The barricades here were things of concrete and steel. The men behind were perhaps a dozen strong, maybe more. They had two large fixed guns and the men were screaming in terror and fury. But the barricades were broken, half collapsed into the floor, and some shattered where they stood. Shaped charges placed on the ceiling of the floor beneath this one, the crippling blow that Young Carl had been waiting for before he sent them to attack.

Carlson sighted on a guard near the center and began to fire on the man with short consistent bursts. The man's shield's failed as rounds from two or three different men hit him, and Carlson watched him drop bleeding to the ground. He picked another target, this one dropped down beneath the remains of a barrier, out of Carlson's line of sight. He picked another, one of the fixed gunners. That one was also cut down, just as the air around the barrel's of Carlson's rifle began to grow hazy from the radiating heat. Carlson fired two more bursts at the other fixed gunner, then dropped to his knee to let the man behind him come forward. Just as he did, he saw an unarmored man climb up to the vacated fixed gun and begin firing at the approaching squadron. The man died almost immediately, and then the scene was blocked from view again as the men around him advanced.

He fell to the back of the squadron, then stood up and took his place at the back of the line. He scanned his gun to check for damage, none to report. He checked his shields, they had fallen to about sixty percent power but were quickly recharging. Slowly men in front of him fell back behind him. He made it up to third row from the front when Young Carl called out again.

"Ready grenades!" Came the order, and men in the third and fourth rows pulled the disc shaped explosives from the chambers where their omni fabricators prepared them. Carlson was one of them, he synched it with his omnitool to a five second timer and waited for the next order.

"Front ranks drop!" The front rank dropped to their bellies, the rank behind them took a knee and both continued firing steadily on towards the defenders who were now only perhaps ten or twenty meters away. Immediately, Carlson threw the grenade like a skipping stone over the barriers but still close to the front.

"Next rank kneel!" Carlson and the men around him dropped to their knees as a round of explosions wracked the defenders. The next round of grenades sailed over his head. The front ranks sprang to their feet, some men stowed their rifles behind them and drew shotguns or pistols and knives or omniblades. The second round of grenades exploded, what few barriers that once stood were down, and the corridor filled with smoke and screams of pain.

"Rush em!" Young Carl ordered. Carlson fixed a knife to the front of his rifle and leapt forward with the rest of the squadron. A few shots flew back at them out of the smoke, but nowhere near enough to slow the on rushing mob down. In moments they were leaping over the shattered remains of the defenses and spilling into the room beyond.

The men spread out, ignoring fallen twisted and shattered bodies near the entrance. The room opened up and soon Carlson could see ahead clearly. His eyes focused on a Batarian man screaming and firing a pistol wildly. Carlson charged the man, spraying automatic fire from his rifle as he closed in. His target was unshielded and the rounds tore bloody holes through his body, but Carlson didn't stop. He slammed into the man, driving his makeshift bayonet into the man's heart and driving him into the ground.

Calson wrenched the bayonet free and looked for his next foe. He saw a wounded security guard wrestling with a squad mate trying to hold back the man's knife from his body. Carlson swung the butt of his rifle into the back of the man's head. The hit knocked the strength from the man's arms and the knife plunged into his throat.

He spun around to make sure he wasn't about to get blindsided himself. He saw three figures huddling in a corner of the room. Women from the look of them, unarmed but wearing security bands on their arms. They were probably administrators of some kind. Such thoughts drifted in the back of his mind, the anger still had him and all he could think to do was kill. Carlson and five other men raised guns in their direction and cut them down in a hail of fire.

When the rattle of rifle fire died away the room went silent. Men panted heavily to themselves as they stood over the broken bodies of their foes. There were perhaps as many bodies on the ground as there were men standing, none of them came from the squadron, perhaps only one in three had any kind of body armor.

Both sides of the room were lined with heavy steel doors, seven on each side, spaced at regular intervals. At the back of the room a door led into another such chamber, this one was unguarded though as Selena soon confirmed. Each door had a sliding hatch near the top of them, and one soldier opened it back to look inside.

"Prisoner cell." He declared, "Full of women, mostly Asari."

"Break em open and get them out." Young Carl ordered, "Shepherd says these girls tried to help us, so we're not going to leave them here."

Men started tapping on their omnitools to fabricate the shaped charges they had used from time to time to breach sealed doors. The cells opened up and the prisoners within were brought out. They came slowly, hesitantly, but they came out all the same. They were mostly Asari and humans, but there was the occasional Salarian or even Quarian thrown into the mix as well. At about the fifth door on the left side they found their first Batarians.

"More four eyes in here." A gruff man called out looking through the hatch into the cell, he raised his rifle to the opening. Carlson lunged for the man and forced his arm down before he had sighted into the cell.

"Shepherd said to rescue the people held here." Carlson growled at the man, who sneered back at him.

"What could he care for these slaving monsters!" The man shouted back, trying to wrench the gun free, but Young Carl grabbed the man's shoulder from behind and stopped him from pulling back.

"They're all the same!" The man preemptively yelled at their leader. "All murderous, thieving, barbarian, alien scum!"

Carlson agreed, but he didn't let go of the man's rifle. He would never forgive any Batarian for what they had done to his sister, and maybe to this man's family as well. He would feel no remorse no matter how many of them were cut down by himself or any others. But Shepherd had said to free everyone imprisoned here. He had no home left on Elysium, no family left alive, no future awaited him anywhere. But Shepherd saw a future, a better one than this, and he would follow him there.

"Hey four eyes!" Young Carl called into the cell, not taking his eyes off the man he held in place. "Why are you all in here?"

"I helped an Asari try and hide the body of a security guard we had killed." A voice called from within. Like most Batarians it sounded too deep to be from a real person, but it also sounded strangely feminine. And scared. There was terror in that voice, terror held down by an iron will and long practice, but terror nonetheless.

"We had been poisoning guards who came to our bar," She continued, sounding more afraid as she went on but regaining some composure near the end. "One of them must've caught on to something because Kayla had to snap his neck. We tried to get the body out, but another guard caught us. Kayla tried to fight back, she... She died. I was brought here."

"Are you going to kill someone who risked their life for us?" Carlson demanded to know, "Just because she has the wrong number of eyes?"

The man at last looked downcast. They had seen the work these people had done for them on the way here. Soldiers groggy and shaky from pain, officers lying out on beds sick and dying. Their path had been made much easier and safer because of people like this woman who had risked everything to do what was right.

Young Carl let go of the man's shoulder and let him pull back and away from the cell. He still looked sullen and Carlson sympathized with him. It was hard to walk away from those he thought held guilt for what they had suffered. The mission had not changed though, so Carlson broke down the door and let the Batarians out.

Many of the men openly glared at the group, and at the two other groups of Batarians they freed from that room and the next. All the rescued people were jittery with fear and had a hard time tearing their eyes away from the bodies on the floor or the shattered defenses. Most of the prisoners were women, there were some men though and some who looked like they deserved to be in these cells. A few of the former prisoners stooped to take weapons off the dead and drew closer to the men who had rescued them. Two or three men surrounded each, talking with them in low whispers before handing them spare shield generators. Even a few Batarian men were pulled into the squadron.

When the cells had all been cleared Young Carl raised his omnitool and spoke to it. He spoke loudly and the returning replies could be heard from several other omnitools. Everyone liked knowing just what it was they were expected to do.

"Young Carl to overwatch, cell block twelve is cleared and we got three hundred odd civilians ready for evac."

"Roger that Carl," Overwatch, the pretty bureaucrat who had organized this squadron and sent them on the attack, answered, "Your way out is secured, get those folks out of there and out to the starport. There are trucks waiting to take you all at loading bay five, follow my directions once you're out of that complex and I'll get you to them no problem."

"Copy that," Young Carl confirmed, "Any other places in here that still need to be cracked Jessica? My boys are still ready to go."

Carlson perked up at that as did the men around him. More fighting would always be welcomed. Carlson also hated the idea that elsewhere men were fighting and dying while he escorted some people and himself to safety.

"Negative," Jessica denied and all around Carlson men deflated in disappointment. "There's only one or two blocks left to break and you wouldn't make it in time. You actually took longer than expected Young Carl. The sappers were waiting for you to hit this place for a full fifteen minutes. You and Selena are too cautious for your own good."

"We get our work done woman." Young Carl shot back, "We might take our time but we get it done and we all come back alive. I could go faster if you want some names to go black."

Most men chuckled at that. Everyone liked a commander who got them out alive. More than a few grimaced though, whether for the men they had lost as part of other squads, or because they thought getting to fights sooner was worth the losses. Carlson did neither. Fighting was good, living to fight more was also good. He liked Young Carl, he had been with them when they broke the pirates and rescued everyone. Shepherd had trusted him to lead, but even without that glowing recommendation Carlson wouldn't have minded following the man. He had a good head on his shoulders, and an attitude that was easy to get along with.

"Just get back here." Jessica ordered them, "And don't take too long doing it either. The bucket head says we're going to get leaking into the air vent system soon. You got maybe an hour and a half at most, before you have to start digging tumors out of your ears to hear me."

"Right lads you heard the lady!" Young Carl cried out, "We've got to get these good people and ourselves out of here right quick. Twenty men up front, ten in the back, let's get these people to safety and then never look back on this god forsaken rock."

The column formed up quickly and soon took off on a light jog. On the way out some people stumbled over the bodies in the hallways, but most were caught by those around them and quickly set back on their feet. Carlson found himself at the back of the column watching their rear for signs of pursuit. Not that they were likely to find any. The base had been well cleared out by that point, perhaps only a handful of stragglers remained cowering in some corner somewhere hoping not to be noticed. Such men had a cruel fate in store for themselves and Carlson felt no pity for any of them. Either way, such men wouldn't dare attack a party of this size. As they ran on one of the Batarian women fell back to jog alongside him.

"Thanks for speaking up for us back there." Carlson recognized the voice from the cell, the woman who had helped kill for them.

"I was just following orders." He answered her simply.

"You hate us don't you?" He stumbled at that question. He had not expected her to notice. "I've seen plenty of men who look down on me throughout my life, but that look of pure contempt on your face I've only seen once before on a man whose wife left him because he had been paying me for what he couldn't get at home. Blamed me for it I guess. Said something about how I was a foul temptress who had destroyed his life. What happened to you?"

"Pirates killed my sister." He explained, he wasn't certain why.

"I'm no pirate." She denied.

"You work for them." He accused.

"I work for a barman," she declared jokingly, "At worst I help them get drunk sometimes."

"This whole moon is run by pirates. One way or another everything you have came from them."

"Oh be honest with me now. You don't hate me because you think I'm a pirate, you hate me because I'm a Batarian."

Carlson didn't answer that. He wasn't honestly certain if he did hate her or not. He didn't feel anything right then. He could imagine her dying and brought him no pleasure or regret. He knew he hated Batarians and he felt fully justified in that, but it was an odd thing. In the rush of the fight he felt real anger, driving merciless and all consuming. But what he felt towards the Batarians was different, a cold certainty that the universe would be better off without them. That they were all just as bad as the pirates who had come for them.

"Why did you betray them?" He asked instead. "You had a life here, and these were people you knew. You could've easily warned them, but you didn't. You didn't even cave to them when they killed your friend and arrested you. Why not?"

The woman didn't answer him for a time. She seemed to be pondering the question herself. She also studied him quite closely.

"Those security guards weren't my people." She declared, "Neither were the pirates. Everyone I cared about worked in a small bar, in a back corner of this place and did what they had to do to survive. When that giant appeared before us and told us what was going to happen, all I could think about in that moment was how everyone would no longer have to look over their shoulder in fear. Once I saw him and heard him, I knew that everything was going to be alright for once. Even when they captured me and killed Kayla I still thought that."

So that was the answer then, Shepherd again. He accepted that. Shepherd gave him the same sense of comfort and peace. Shepherd had ripped his life away from the direction he was spiraling down and had turned him around, given him hope for the future and stayed his hand from doing something monstrous.

Then Carlson realized that in a way, the two of them were the same. Their lives had both been comfortably going forward, well his had been comfortable maybe her's hadn't, and then everything had been taken from them and they were thrown for a loop. Now they both clung on for dear life to something that seemed so impossible and so certain. Slave or pirate, human or Batarian, Shepherd took them all, made them into something better and set them to work making a better future for all of them. In that moment he knew, he felt no hatred for this woman.

"I'm Carlson by the way." He said simply, there was no need to respond to what she had said. Everything she had said had been right and proper.

"I'm Jeer." She said back just as simply and honestly. The two of them walked on in silence. Soon they reached the loading bay and began to board the very same trucks that had brought them all down into this place. Now they left, not in cages and rags as they had come, but in the armor of warriors with new free men by their side.

As the people began to file into the trucks, Carlson looked back into this monstrous underground base. He realized that for all the humiliation he and all the others had suffered here, he didn't hate this place as he thought he should. How, after all, could any man ever truly hate his own mother? And this was his mother now. He had come down into her with nothing, had faced the worst the galaxy had to offer, had been reborn in blood and fire and now was ready to leave a new man. He let out one long breath and with it released his anger out into this place. The fires of that anger had sheltered and guided him through this hellish land, anger born from death that stalked his soul. But now this place would be given over to the dead, and his anger would stay here with it.

He would go into the future that Shepherd was creating as a new man. He would see this new world and greet it free of his hatred from the past. He would welcome those that would come to live there. And they would all be his brothers just as Shepherd had named them.

* * *

T+4 hours

"Okeer." Shepherd stated blankly as behind him some shuttlecraft took off into the atmosphere carrying the last of his army and the civilians away to safety. Around him a not inconsiderable retinue had gathered waiting to take off as well. There were about twenty of the division commanders who had kept the most of their men alive and uninjured during the fighting, another twenty five of the overseers who had shown the most talent and understanding of tactics whose men had completed their objectives the fastest with the least assistance needed from Shepherd himself. Five more of the pirate captains stood amongst that group, including Jar'Kannath but also several of the captains he considered the most influential and important of the pirate fleet. Jack stood back in a corner of the room trying to barate Saren for vanishing on her during one of their outings together to secure other command posts. But it was Tali who studied them all, most intently from where she sat on the ramp leading up into one of the last transports that would take his followers away.

"Yeah Shepherd," Okeer answered back. The warlord was flanked by two other krogans, all of whom looked as old and dangerous as the battlemaster. Behind them about a hundred or so krogan stood along the edges of the shuttlebay. There were maybe three hundred more Vorcha in the rest of the starport, but only the Krogan who led them came here. They shuffled back and forth amongst themselves, talking quietly and caressing their weapons almost lovingly. There was not a one amongst them whose armor wasn't painted in blood splatter or scored with dents and burn marks. Mostly though they eyed the third group in the room, Zaeed Massani surrounded by about fifteen men from the Blue Suns. Most of the Blue Suns were busy offloading data slates into the transport ships that contained millions of credits. The rest were glaring down the krogan as if wondering when the shooting would start.

"What is this?" Shepherd said dully. Tali couldn't quite see from her vantage point, but she knew that Okeer had dragged something into the room and dropped it at Shepherd's feet. She thought she could almost hear a faint whimpering coming from the ground before him.

"That's the governor's head." Okeer declared.

"Is it?"

"Yes it is."

"I can't help but notice." Shepherd observed following that exchange and a short pause. "That it seems to still be attached to the governor's body. Which is also still alive, and I think it is crying on my boots."

"Well of course the governor is still alive." Okeer explained as if nothing could be simpler. "All you asked for was his head. So I brought you his head. What? Did you expect me to just murder the man for you in cold blood."

The Krogan smiled showing far too many teeth as they did. Zaeed in the corner rolled his eyes as if disparaging the total lack of professionalism the Krogan were showing. Saren in the back corner actually chuckled to himself despite Jack's attempts to further berate him, which faltered as she herself could barely stop from smiling. Tali could appreciate an honest case of malicious compliance, but not when a man's life was on the line.

"Yes that's actually exactly what I expected you to do." Shepherd answered deadpanned. "In fact you could say I am more than a little bit frustrated that you've not only failed to kill him, but also brought him here to cry on my boots. I don't own many boots, Okeer, not many companies make them in my size, and now they have the tears of a slaving governor on them."

"Well perhaps next time you could be a bit more precise when you hire my services." Okeer shot back. "Either way, you have his head, so I think you owe me something in return."

Shepherd nodded in Tali's direction and called her forward. She would rather not do this. She had tried to switch out Okeer's omnitool for literally anyone else's but Shepherd had prevented her from giving it to him, and Jack had scoffed at the thought of her getting two omnitools when there were so many other people who needed them for fighting and communication. Maybe she could've traded with someone, and then left them to take the blame if they had damaged it and had to return a broken omnitool to an angry krogan. Or even worse, if someone had deleted Okeer's quite sizable porn collection off it, and with it the results of decades of research. She wished she had the courage to delete all that smut herself, whatever Shepherd said curing the Genophage could not be a sane idea, but she didn't.

Shepherd retrieved one of the many guns he had strapped to his back and handed it over to Okeer. The old Krogan immediately extended the gun tossing aside the other shotgun he had been using up until then. He checked it carefully for any sign of damage and all but cuddled with the thing before returning it to his belt. The other Krogan seemed to be holding back laughs of their own, but both nodded in approval at the exchange; apparently they thought there was nothing strange about breaking a fortress and killing hundreds of men just to get a favored gun back. Tali disengaged the omnitool from her wrist and handed it over to the warlord who took it far more nonchalantly and reengaged it without pause or second thought.

"You better not have done anything to my stash." Was all the Krogan growled out.

"No nothing!" Tali was quick to confirm. "Everything is just as you left it! Well I did add a few new combat programs in case I was attacked or anything. Just an incinerate and overload charge. And a deployable holodrone. And I also add an autoscan function to check if your arm is coated in a stasis effect and then auto lock if it was. You'll have to set a password to get around that lock but it should keep anyone else from stealing it from you by cutting off your arm again. Also I changed some of the settings to boost its power output which should give you a more stable omniblade but it might need to be recharged more often now. You can disable that in the setting menu to go back to your old preset for when you aren't in combat. Also-"

"I get it, I get it!" Okeer yelled back to interrupt her. "Leave your stuff with a damn suit rat for just a day and a half and they completely change everything about it. Lesson learned."

He glared at Shepherd. "Well if our business is concluded we'll be going now."

"How exactly?" Shepherd asked innocently.

"On one of the pirate ships of course." Okeer responded, unclipping his favorite shotgun from his belt as he did.

"You've got payment for your passage?" Shepherd pressed.

"Your lives."

"Do I have to rip your other arm off Okeer?"

"I've got more men backing me up this time."

"I've got orbital fire support." Shepherd one upped with a finger pointing to the sky. The Assembled humans gathered around the base of the shuttle craft ready to cover a hasty retreat. The Blue Suns joined them, not willing to give up their escape ticket from this death trap. Saren came up and took a place right next to Shepherd, his hands hovering just above an assault rifle and a submachine gun maglocked to the legs of his armor.

"Well what do you want then?" Okeer offered. He knew how Shepherd could move, he also knew that Shepherd didn't have to beat him to win, just get on to the shuttle and off the moon alive. The radiation leak from the reactor melt down probably wasn't enough to kill the Krogan here, not this far out away from ground zero, their people had survived quite well on a radioactive hell hole for quite a few centuries after all. But how long would it be before another ship was willing to come anywhere near Torfan, much less actually land in the place long enough to pick them up. Even then, he would be having this same conversation then as he was now.

"Hey Jar'Kannath!" Shepherd called back to the pirate. "How much do the pirate captains owe the Blood Pack for Elysium?"

"About eighteen million credits all together," Another pirate captain, Durrin Tali thought his name was, answered first and earned a glare from Jar'Kannath.

"That much." Shepherd told Okeer.

"Two jobs done pro bono!" One of the Krogan next to Okeer exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air in frustration. "This job has been just the worst!"

"Would you prefer to keep the money and wait around for the next trip off this rock?" Okeer asked his companion.

"This had better be one hell of a war you're cooking up Shepherd!" The Krogan yelled back to the towering human. "The Blood Pack better be your first choice of mercenaries to work with, AND WE EXPECT TO GET PAID NEXT TIME!"

"I'm certain we can all come to a mutually beneficial arrangement." Shepherd assured them, "Just as soon as we are all off this rock."

"Now." Shepherd said, turning away from the Krogan to the groveling figure at his feet, "Just what am I supposed to do with you?"

"Please my lord!" The man called out, looking up. He was a fat man Tali could see. So much so that the normally bony facial structure all Batarians had was nearly smooth out from the rolls of fat that had grown between the ridges. He panted heavily even as he talked, his lips quavered, he wouldn't meet anyone's eyes and whatever he said was constantly interrupted as he sobbed some more.

"I was only doing what the Hegemon told me to!" The fat man wailed, his voice had an odd resonance to it managing to sound nasally even as deep as it was. "I never wanted to hurt any of the humans here, my orders were just to hold the pirates in place until the Alliance came to kill them all. You must believe me! I never meant to hurt anyone."

"The Hegemon knew about this place?" Shepherd asked, his omnitool glowed active on one of his arms, though he held both of his hands on hips like a judgemental parent. As the two spoke, Saren activated his own omnitool and began to seemingly scan the governor where he lay.

"He knew there was a pirate base here," The governor explained, still keeping at least some of his wits about him. "He knew they were planning something and so sent me here to keep an eye on this place. When I learned of the attack I sent word and was told to hold them here until the Alliance came. The Hegemon and I have always wanted peace with mankind and never wanted any of this to happen."

"Nonsense." A pirate captainess sneered from behind them, "The Hegemon all but ordered the attack on Elysium to happen."

"He would never!" The governor denied, Shepherd leaned down close to the man to whisper to him, Tali thought she saw his hand that held his omnitool twitch slightly.

"Are you calling my friend Soi'Fon a liar?" Tali could just barely make out what he said, but the governor went white, or as close to it as a Batarian could get.

"Well perhaps he would…" The man stammered back, Shepherd raised an eyebrow at the man, nothing more.

"It was just to be a military attack!" He protested, "That was what the army units were told, only attack military targets! How were we supposed to know the pirates would raid the cities for slaves?"

"And the auction?" Jar'Kannath asked with almost deathly quiet.

"A bait to hold you all here after the Hegemon had had his first pick of the slaves!" The governor insisted, trying to throw anyone under the bus that he could to save his own life. He turned his attention back to Shepherd "You must believe me my lord! I meant no harm to anyone! Most everyone would've gone back safe and sound to the Alliance in just a week or so. I was only doing what I was told! I mean no harm to anyone! No need to trouble yourselves about me! Just let me go please! I'll run right back to Torfan and you'll never hear from me aga-"

The governor was cut off as Saren stabbed a syringe into his neck and pulled out a decent sample of the man's blood. He scanned it with his omnitool and tapped out a few programs on it, while the governor looked up at the Turian, his eyes burning with honest hatred that he had been assaulted so. Saren made a beckoning motion to Zaeed who threw one of the dataslates to him. Saren connected the slate to his omnitool and after a few moments nodded in satisfaction.

"I've got a working copy of his biosignature." He announced. "We can unlock the dataslates now and transfer the credits as needed. You can do whatever else you want with him, Shepherd."

Shepherd nodded and looked back down at the man who had resumed groveling and cringing before him. Shepherd's face was hard set against the man. But Tali thought she almost saw pity in the man's eyes. He shook his head and muttered, 'Such a damn waste.' under his breath and then grabbed the governor by his neck one handed.

Shepherd lifted the governor up to his face. He was supporting the man by his jaws more than his neck so he had little trouble breathing. He stared into the man's eyes with a burning intensity.

"I should leave you here to rot away." Shepherd said at last. "I suppose I have enough mercy left in me for this at least."

With one hand holding him in place, his other set to work. He grabbed the governor's one arm and squeezed it until the bones within it shattered into all but dust, he did the same to the next. He bent one of his legs backwards, and pulled the other from its sockets at the hip and the knee so it hung limp and useless. With a casual flick of his wrist he tossed the broken man through the air and landed him just beneath one of the rocket engines on the shuttle craft. Unless the man could pull himself free from the room, when they left he would die in a second or two.

Shepherd turned from the broken man, and turned away from Torfan. He strode up the ramp to the shuttlecraft without saying another word. The humans who followed him sneered at the governor's remains, he had admitted the Batarian government had been behind the attack on their homes, had been ready to carry at least some of them away into slavery, and were ready to leave the rest to die here on Torfan. The pirate captains looked no happier knowing that their homeland had led them into a trap and planned to sacrifice them all. The Krogan and mercs gave the matter no further thought it was none of their business after all. Soon only Jack, Saren and Tali remained in the shuttlebay.

"Was that really necessary?" Tali wondered aloud.

"Considering that the man asked to be sent back to die of radiation poisoning," Saren answered, "I would say it was down right soft of him. If you have more mercy in you than he does, you have a side arm. Go save him suit rat."

Tali glared at the Turian Spectre as he turned away to enter the ship. She knew it did no good, to him it would seem no different to her looking dumbly after him. Her hand did go to her side arm though, but it just hovered there. Even for the man's own good, she could not kill in cold blood.

There was a crack behind her, and she whipped around to see Jack standing over the now still corpse of the governor. There was a smoking gun in her hand. She spat to the side and came up to Tali where she stood on the ramp ready to board.

"Shepherd over thinks these things." Jack told her. "He looks for balance sometimes where there is none to be had. Some people just need to die, and you have to be the one who kills them."

End of Trouble in Torfan.

* * *

AN: good god I hate this chapter. I am satisfied with how it turned out, but it fought me every step of the way to write. Especially the first part when Shepherd and Saren were speaking. I want to print out a copy of this chapter jump up and down on it a few times and then burn it. This section of the story was written out of pure spite, make no mistake. But it is done and that's the end of it.

So Saren joined the group. Bet ya didn't see that one coming huh? Probably thought it would be Nihlus if anyone else was going to get scooped up. While I have nothing but respect for those who can make Nihlus into an actual character I like Saren a bit more. He's easily the second best villain in all of mass effect, only edged out by TIM who has three whole games to develop, while Saren only gets the one. The only thing I think that's lacking from his story is that he has no real history with Shepherd in ME1. You're just some dude who shows up out of nowhere and wrecks his plans time and time again. There is some satisfaction from watching the man go from dismissing you to hating your guts but the end, but there's more drama to be had from characters who actually know each other. So yeah we get more of Saren.

Some might say he's a bit out of character in this chapter, but do remember that Saren in ME1 had already been broken by Sovereign and was more than little crazy and mind controlled by the time we ever meet him. This is the Saren who was lauded by the Council as a true hero. A man who would go to great lengths to do what he thought right, but who nonetheless was still doing what he thought was right. Either way let me know what you think in the reviews.

I always love getting the review notification. It reminds me that this story still exists and is worth continuing. I would like to remind people that the review section is for actual reviews of this story, and not a place to dump all your theories on how all the 40k lore actually fits together. That's what my private messages are for.

Thanks for reading.


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